Why Selling Expertise Feels Harder in 2026

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We're only three weeks into the new year, and I've already watched something interesting play out. Brilliant and seasoned experts with massive audiences are struggling to sell even a $500 offer while newer and smaller creators are closing $10,000 clients. This is something that you should be paying attention to because it tells us something significant is changing in the way we monetize our expertise in 2026. Now, before though we unpack what's actually happening, it's worth acknowledging something that makes this even more puzzling. And that is the training and coaching industry is actually booming right now. It's projected to surpass $1 trillion by the end of 2026. So that should actually mean that making money from your expertise is going to get easier. There's going to be more opportunities. But for most people, it's actually getting harder. Now, the reason isn't just because noise is at all time high and the market is saturated. Both of those are true. But the deeper reason is that the way people decide who to trust and who to buy from has fundamentally changed. And the strange part is that most of the marketing advice circulating online right now hasn't really caught up to this reality yet. So, in this episode, I want to unpack what's really driving this divide and what it means for anyone selling their expertise in 2026. Hello and welcome to Marketing Your Truth, the podcast for entrepreneurs who want to grow a fulfilling and impactful business with clarity, integrity, and ease without performing, chasing trends, or losing their voice. I'm your host, Ellen Atoli, and I'm really glad you're here. Let's get started. Now, when you zoom out, you can see six major changes that shape what's happening right now. And together they explain why some experts are thriving, while others, even though they're seasoned and have decades of experience, are

Shift 1: Visibility No Longer Creates Trust

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struggling. Let's start with the first one. Building trust now matters more than increasing your visibility or reach. For a long time, visibility acted like a shortcut. And what I mean by that is if someone saw you often enough on their social media feeds, across multiple platforms, or in their inbox, that repetition created familiarity. And normally familiarity leads to trust, and trust often leads to a buying decision. But that dynamic has drastically changed today. Over the last few years, content volume has exploded between AI tools, automations, and short-form platforms like TikTok or YouTube Shorts. People are exposed to more ideas and advice and opinions in a single day than they used to see in an entire month. So attention is no longer the constraint. What's constrained right now in 2026 is something else entirely. People are far more selective right now in this market about who they listen to and who they're willing to invest with. Because again, we're dealing with a much more informed, more selective, and a more educated market. And that is why visibility on its own no longer does the job that people expect it to do or the job that it's been doing. Now, visibility can make people aware of you. It can even spark interest in who you are and what you sell, but it doesn't automatically create trust. And trust, especially in this market, is what buying decisions are built on. And this is a part that keeps a lot of smart and capable people busy, thinking that they're gaining ground, but in reality, they're marching in place. They assume that if someone is watching, listening, or following them, then that person must be getting closer to buying from them. But being seen isn't the same as being chosen. You can be visible without being trusted. That distinction matters now more than ever because in today's market, people aren't just asking whether or not you're knowledgeable or you have experience or you have social proof. They're comparing you to many other options, many other solutions, many other experts, and asking whether you're the right guide for them, whether you get their specific situation, whether you're going to deliver what you're promising. Those questions don't get answered through just reach alone. They get answered through what happens after someone starts paying attention to you. Once visibility has done its job, once someone notices you, every interaction after that begins to carry or should carry more weight. Every piece of content, every email, every video, every interaction, every touch point, every single one of them is either helping your ideal buyer feel clear about how you think, what you stand for, and whether you're the right person for them. Or it's going to leave them unsure. And what do people do when they're unsure? Well, they wait, they hesitate, they don't move forward, or they move on to someone who helps them feel that clarity much faster. In 2026, the role of visibility has changed entirely. Visibility opens doors, but trust determines whether anyone walks through

Shift 2: Why Valuable Content Doesn’t Lead to Enrollment

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it. Moving on to the second shift that we're seeing in this market in 2026, valuable content alone doesn't lead to enrollment. In 2026, the biggest misunderstanding in online marketing is about the role of your content. Now, most people think that content means you are teaching or you're using it to provide value. If you've ever heard the phrase give away your best stuff and they will come to buy from you, or if you've ever thought that if I just show up and share that I know my stuff, share my wisdom, share value, then that will lead to enrollment, then this is something you need to pay attention to. Today, people don't buy because they learn something from you. They buy because they see themselves in the problem the way that you're describing it. Or they understand as a result of interacting with you or listening to you or watching you. Now they have clarity and understanding about the deeper root cause of why they're still stuck. Or they believe that your approach makes sense for them, or they trust that you're the right guide for them. Valuable and educational content checks none of those boxes by default. That's why purely content creators or educational creators often end up with high engagement but low conversion. They end up with a lot of followers and a lot of fans, but a very few buyers. I also want you to think about something. No matter what niche or industry you're in right now and what your solution is, your audience isn't lacking information. What they're lacking is clarity about their own situation. So when you make sure that your content isn't just about giving them value or giving them information, but a 360 viewpoint into their situation, what you're giving them is insight. You're giving them clarity that almost nobody in your industry is giving them right now. And that, in my opinion, is transformational. And when you do this often enough and you do it really well over and over and over again, an interesting thing happens. Your audience at that point don't need to be convinced that you're the right person for them. They're gonna show up at your doorstep asking how they can work with you. So that was the second shift. Valuable content alone doesn't lead to enrollment,

Shift 3: People Buy Perspective, Not Just Expertise

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which goes hand in hand with the third major shift that we're seeing, which is people will buy perspective, not just experience. Let's talk about it. A few years ago, expertise was the differentiator. Teach me how to do something was a game changer. But today, as we all know, information is everywhere. Not only can you Google it or go to YouTube to get answers to your questions, now AI, on top of explaining it to you, it'll customize it and guide you through it step by step. So expertise isn't scarce anymore. What people, your audience, are actually valuing right now is your perspective. And let me tell you what the difference between the two is. Expertise will tell your audience what to do and how to do it. But on the other hand, perspective helps them understand why it matters to their specific situation and how they can interpret what you're telling them to fit it into their own unique needs and what to prioritize and what to ignore and how it fits into their bigger vision and into their bigger outcome that they're looking for. And this really matters right now because if you look at most buyers in almost all markets right now, they're not stuck because they lack information. They're stuck because they don't know which advice applies directly to their specific situation. They don't know what are the problems underneath the surface level problems that everyone's telling them about. They don't know why all their previous attempts hasn't really worked up to now. They don't know what to believe or who to believe. And none of those are information gaps. They're translation gaps. And the translation happens when you bring your perspective into the conversation. When you give your audience your perspective, you're doing something extremely valuable to them, which is you're helping them make sense of their own situation. You help them see all the patterns that's underneath those surface level symptoms that everybody else is talking them to. You help them diagnose the real issues instead of fixing the, again, surface level wrong ones. And you help them understand why all those obvious solutions that they followed hasn't worked and what to do next. Expertise can't do any of that. Now, I want to also talk about another important piece when it comes to perspective, which is perspective converts. And the reason is because when we share our expertise in a lot of ways, we're educating people with here's how to do X, or here are the next five steps that'll take you to that desired outcome. So if you think about it, that gives them this false sense of confidence that they now know how to move forward, follow the steps that you just educated them on to reach that desired outcome. But when we share our perspective, we're doing something different. We are diagnosing why the other five steps didn't work and what would work given their specific situation. That's why perspective converts. It doesn't just hand people a cure without context, it helps them understand why your recommended path forward makes sense for their specific situation. And so if perspective is what actually helps people make a buying decision, then it changes how we also need to think about the path that your ideal buyers need to take to get

Shift 4: Buying Paths Are No Longer Linear

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them there. Which brings me to the next major change, shift number four, is funnels will become nonlinear. So let's first talk about the traditional funnel, which was built on the simple idea that you get in front of a whole bunch of people, and then some of them end up upset into your funnel and they read a whole bunch of your emails, and eventually, as they're reading and getting your emails, um, somewhere along the way, as they're getting down to the bottom of the funnel, they make a buying decision and buy from you. But that assumes that life is linear. However, in 2026, buying behavior is actually very messy, it's very chaotic. There's no order to it. Now, let me give you an example from my own life. I came across someone in the personal development space on YouTube. I love what he was saying so much that I binge watched three of his videos in one sitting. I ended up checking out his program, but I didn't buy. However, I did opt into his funnel to grab one of his free resources. Now, I have every intention to go through it, but life got in a way. And even though I was getting his emails, I just never got around to opening up his emails. Now, months went by, out of sight, out of mind, and all of a sudden I saw one of his videos on Facebook. So that night I ended up binge watching some of his videos, and then I went back and checked out his program, saw that he has a membership also. Again, I didn't make a buying decision and I forgot all about him. Another probably three months went by, and one of my friends mentioned that she was attending an event that I should also go to. And of course, it was his event. I was like, oh my gosh, I know him. So I ended up attending his event. He did promote his membership at the end of that event, which I still didn't buy. And another two more months went by before I joined his program. And this is exactly what's happening to the majority of your audience right now. And the reason is because we have so much coming at us all the time that we're doing this like zigzag thing rather than going down a neat, straight, and linear path. Right now, platforms decide the order in which someone consumes your content. And of course, algorithm is what decides the entry point and the exit point. And at the end of the day, it's the buyers who decide the pace in which they interact and consume your content. So that brings us to this question of if we can't control the sequence and the order, then what can we control? And the answer is coherence. Your videos, your posts, your podcasts, your emails, all your content, this should all reinforce the same message, the same worldview, and the same through line. So no matter where someone enters, they're getting a consistent picture of who you are, how you think, and whether working with you makes sense to them. You should consider every touch point, everything that you create and you share as an experience that you're creating for your audience. And those experiences should stack up. As someone moves through them, they start feeling more aligned with you, more connected to your perspective, and more confident that choosing you is the right move for them. I see this play out all the time. Someone might come across one of my articles, and then they end up checking me out on YouTube, binge watching my videos, then go to my podcast, start binge listening to my podcast episodes, then they go grab my book or a couple of other resources, maybe even join my newsletter, all within three to five days, and then they end up enrolling with me. Now, from the outside, it might look like they suddenly decided to enroll. But from this side, from my side, I know that it wasn't all of a sudden at all. And the reason is because they were moving through different pieces of the same story, intentionally designed to help them understand how I think, how I work, and why working together fits. That's the difference. In 2026, the strongest marketing won't be designed around how software wants people to move. They'll be designed around what humans need and how they naturally move towards a buying decision.

Shift 5: How High-Ticket Decisions Are Actually Being Made

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All right, so let's talk about shift number five. If you watch what's happening in our industry right now, um by our industry, I mean training, coaching, and consulting industry. One of the most important changes that we're seeing in 2026 is in how high-ticket offers are actually being bought. Buyers are taking their time to decide, they're more cautious, and they're more discerning. And in my opinion, there's nothing bad about that. I think that's the way it should be if you are making an investment that's 5,000, 10,000, 30,000 or above. What is breaking down right now is the old playbook of pressure-based selling, of manufacture scarcity, countdown timers, bonus stacking, enroll today or lose everything tactics. Those tactics worked when buyers didn't have context, when information was harder to access, and when urgency could override their own agency. In 2026, people don't want to be pushed into a buying decision. They don't want to be convinced, they don't want tactics that override their own judgment. They want support that helps them make a grounded judgment. So when it comes to high-ticket selling, the questions buyers are asking have changed. They're not asking, can I get a discount or how much is left on a timer? They're asking, is this solution actually a right fit for my own situation? Are you the right person to guide me to get to that outcome that I've been looking for? And do I trust that this will actually work for my specific situation? These are the type of questions that close high-ticket deals today. And none of them can be answered by pressuring people. People are taking their time, they're paying attention, they're watching how you show up across multiple touch points before they decide whether or not they want to invest with you. They're listening to your podcast, they're watching your YouTube videos, they're reading your emails, they're scanning your testimonials, they're evaluating your thinking, they're checking if your worldview matches their lived reality. So the people who win in high-ticket sales today aren't the ones who push harder or know how to crush sales objections or they've learned some sales tactic. They're the ones who understand how humans actually come to a buying decision. And there are really two foundations that you need for that. The first one is an understanding of how human decision making goes, how alignment forms, how trust builds, how clarity develops. Because when you understand those things, you stop trying to force a yes and instead you create content and experiences that help people decide or reach that decision on their own. And here's the important part to pay attention to. When someone is truly aligned with you, with your solution, with your way, they don't need to be pressured or convinced to reach a yes. They arrive at it on their own. Now let's talk about the second foundation, which is clarity. But this clarity is about yourself. Clarity about who you are, clarity about what you bring into the picture and why your solution makes sense right now for this market, for this audience. If you can't articulate those things consistently and clearly, you're gonna leave your buyers to having to figure all of that out on their own. And most people won't take the time to do that work. But when you can articulate those things well and consistently, you give people, your audience, what they actually need to make a logical, grounded buying decision that's based on fit and trust. And the beautiful thing about both foundations that we just talked about is that they compound understanding how people decide how they make buying decisions and being able to clearly communicate who you are and what you offer, that type of work doesn't expire. It doesn't get replaced by the next algorithm change or the next trend that enters the market. It's actually doing the opposite. Every single day that you spend getting clear on both of these things, your business gets stronger and stronger. So the shift in 2026 isn't just how high-ticket selling has become more human. It's that the mechanism of high-ticket sales is moving from persuasion to qualification, from pressure to clarity, from closing to matching. And what's emerging on the other side of this shift is something much healthier, in my opinion, which is buyers who feel empowered and sellers who feel grounded. And high-ticket decisions that are made with alignment instead of urgency.

Shift 6: Where Authority Really Comes From Now

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And with that, we're at the final change that we're seeing in 2026, which is about how authority itself is formed in a crowded market. Now, authority today in this crowded market is no longer built by simply sharing good, valuable content consistently, as we talked about that earlier. It's built by being able to articulate something that almost no one else in your industry is talking about. Or others are missing or overlooking, or they're just avoiding. Now, as experts, we all have advice that we're sharing on a consistent basis. And we all can explain what we do and how our solution works. And every one of us can walk people through a set of steps to get them from their stock point to their desired outcome. Now, what I really want you to sit with and think about long after this episode is over is this. Today, in 2026, your audience, regardless of what niche or what market you're in, has no shortage of access to information. They have access to more information, more advice, more how-to guidance than ever before in the last several decades. So why is it then that so many people are still stuck? Why is it that even though the education and coaching industry has exploded since the early 2010s, with more programs, more methods, more coaches, more access to everything than ever before, so many people are still circling the same challenges. They've invested in programs, they've hired coaches, they've tried different approaches, and yet the core problems that they had like a decade ago still hasn't been resolved. In 2026, experts who stand out, they won't just offer another solution. They'll be the ones who can clearly explain why the problem hasn't been solved yet for your audience. If you can explain someone's situation more clearly than they can see it themselves, if you can articulate why what they've tried hasn't worked so far, if you can identify or uncover what others keep addressing at the surface level while missing what actually is causing the real issues for your audience. And if your solution meets them at that deeper level, your voice becomes more distinct, more differentiated, and that's how your authority is built in 2026. In today's market, authority isn't about being heard more. It's about making sure that when your voice is heard, it brings clarity that your audience recognizes immediately because it explains their experience better than anything and anyone else ever has. All right, so that concludes the six major shifts that we're seeing in the coaching and expert industry right now. And as you can see, these changes aren't about doing more marketing. They're not about being on more platforms or creating more content or chasing whatever latest trend or algorithm changes that are coming into the market. They're about becoming more intentional with how you use your presence, your content, your voice, and the touch points that you're creating with your ideal fit clients. Because when you go deep and become intentional, rather than going wide and spreading yourself thin, you're going to be less confused, less overwhelmed, but more clear. And we all know that having clarity and breeding room are the biggest pieces of building a business that grows reliably and consistently. And if this episode spoke to you, will you take a second to leave a quick rating or review? It really helps others find this show and join this movement of purpose-driven entrepreneurs using their gifts to make a real difference, not just the living. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you for being here. And if you haven't subscribed yet, now is the time. There is so much goodness coming in 2026, and I don't want you to miss a single episode.