Marketing Suggestions

Marketing Suggestions

OPTIONAL: the information and suggestions in this lesson are for your enjoyment only and is not part of the current program.

So many coaches, therapists and psychologists feel more comfortable with passive marketing methods. Meaning, they would like the clients to find them first. Some coaches will tell me, “I’m always active on Facebook so how is this being passive?” In my lesson on Social Media Marketing, I say one thing to keep in mind is that social media is a “see” platform, meaning people go there to see things, not do things. That makes it difficult for businesses with a long sales cycle to make sales straight from the platform.

Networking not only get you in front of potential clients, but you will find other professionals who can refer you clients. This is an opportunity for you to get to know your market, and for your market to understand you and what you do. There is nothing more powerful than a face to face interaction.

For example – For you this may mean attending your local church group and sharing information about what you do now. When I was running this program in Vegas, I was surprised to find out how many ministers really required my services. Couples share the infidelity with the ministers and pastors of the local church community, and they need to refer these couples to a trusted professional with knowledge in this area. As there are many religious professionals in these institutions who are overwhelmed, I was able to build up my coaching practice in Las Vegas to full capacity within months.

I highly recommend you add at least one networking goal to your marketing plan.

LESSONS COVERED:

  1. Determine your niche market
  2. Profile your ideal client
  3. Building a name your niche will remember!
  4. The purpose of your website
  5. What is your marketing message?
  6. You must blog. Find out why.
  7. Social Media with Purpose
  8. Networking for Fast Track Success
  9. Be your #1 PR Agent

Marketing Suggestions

Below I will discuss some popular marketing strategies.

1. Advertise in local media:

One of the easiest ways to get the word out is to advertise your services in the local media like local newspapers, radio, TV channels, and bulletin boards. While you will have to shell out some amount of money for this, local advertising will get you instant recognition among potential clients in or around the place where you intend to set up shop.

This old-school approach can be very effective especially when you’re looking to build up clientele in your own city or town. Think about bulletin boards outside of shopping centers or in your gym.

2. Free initial life coaching session: Offer a free initial session to people who respond to your local advertising efforts. This is a great way to showcase your coaching skills and to win people’s confidence, which can be quite daunting task for a newbie.

I prefer to offer a 10 to 15 minute consultation on the phone to discuss if that client is a good fit for me. To offer a full 90-minute session is not a strategy I agree with, but it may be a good option for you if you’re beginning in your coaching business – and you have more time?

3. Networking:

The importance of good targeted networking cannot be overemphasized for the success of any business, coaching being no exception. Developing a network of contacts is a great way of getting people to know you, like you and trust you to the point where they would readily recommend you or do business with you. Network in places where you are likely to meet your potential clients or other coaches who have the same target market as you. Networking will not only boost your business prospects but will also help you grow as a coach. It is a long-term strategy with great rewards.

4. Talks and workshops: Organize 1 to 2 hour talks and workshops with the targeted groups to help people understand coaching better. Make the talks informative, interesting, interactive and inspirational, and remember to focus on an area that has relevance to your particular specialization. Make sure to give the people value for their time without sounding like a pushy salesman desperate to get a buyer.

5. Website and blogging: We talked about the need to have a website a short while ago. Get a professional-looking, content-rich website done for yourself. You could use your website to provide information about yourself, your services, your fees, and also to announce new offers and packages.Again, like we said before, include a blogging section in your website, wherein you could write articles on your own or commission someone to do so on your behalf, on general and topical issues related to life coaching, personal development and similar stuff. This will increase your credibility. And if you make it interactive, it will put you in direct touch with your prospective clients.

6. Article writing: Don’t limit yourself to writing articles only for your blog. You could submit articles on different e-zines or simply leave your comments on discussion forums discussing coaching and coaching issues. All such activities will allow you to position yourself as an expert in your field and will help you attract clients from far and wide.

7. Social media marketing: Social media marketing has become an indispensable weapon in the armory of anyone seeking to grow their business and build business relationships. While both Facebook and Twitter are usual suspects whenever the term social media is mentioned, a relatively less known but equally effective place is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the world’s largest and fastest growing online business networking site. Create accounts on these three websites and promote your services. If you are unsure how to use them to promote your business, then spend some time to learn how you could use them to achieve your ends

8. Business cards: This very conventional way of marketing your services is just as important today as it ever was. Get a professional-looking business card designed, with your name and contact details clearly mentioned on it. Carry a few cards whenever you step out, especially when you participate in a networking event or hold a talk or a workshop.

9. Referrals: Referrals from your contacts, clients and/or fellow coaches are all a great marketing strategy. Ask your clients to refer you to other people who might also be looking for such help. You could consider running a referral reward program offering things ranging from discounted fee to free additional sessions to gift vouchers, or any nice thing you could think of. Referrals from satisfied clients could work wonders for you.

10. Get your business listed in coach directories: There are quite a few online and offline directories available which specifically enlist infidelity coaches. This can give you a very high degree of visibility on the internet and is quite cost-effective too.

11. Join a professional association for coaches: Becoming a member of a professional association can help you in many ways. For one, you get to interact with fellow coaches and learn how they market their businesses. Some associations maintain a member directory wherein you can list your business. Finally, some associations are held in high esteem. Being a member of such associations can mean gaining credibility far more easily than it would be possible to gain otherwise.

  • This can be a great strategy for referrals.

Why You MUST Define Your Niche

Lots of coaches intellectually get the idea that you need to work with a certain segment of the market, but some people still resist it. So, let’s just go through the reasons why you might want to pick a niche.Firstly, it’s much, much easier for clients to understand what you do when whatever it is that you’re promoting is actually geared towards them. You’ve understood who they are, what they need and you’re talking in the same sort of language as them, so you’re able to communicate on the same sort of level as the clients and the customers that you’re trying to get to know; and that you’re trying to sell your services to.Once you are able to talk in the same sort of language as them they are much more likely to get you and you are to get them. You can communicate that you understand them, know where they’re coming from, provide solutions to their specific problems and situations and know what results you can empower them to achieve.And ultimately that’s what is going to get you hired – whether you have the ability to create rapport with your clients and make them realise that you’re the person who really has got what they’re looking for – you’re the person who has the best match; or the kind of services that they’re actually looking for.Finally (and perhaps most importantly) time after time research shows that coaches with a niche earn more money than non-niched coaches. My own research indicates that not having a niche could be costing coaches approx. US$90 per hour in lost fees. A coach with a niche typically charges in excess of US$165 per hour while a general life coach charges US$75-100 per hour. In addition, in their first year as a coach, people typically waste anywhere between US$3,400-US$13,200 on ineffective marketing, i.e. marketing which does not generate results. This is because bland, ‘vanilla’ marketing does not attract clients – in a world where everyone seems to be a coach, you have to stand out.So if we know that ‘niching’ is good –why do so many people resist choosing a niche? Well there are a few expressions I’m going to go through here and these are things that I hear from people all the time. They really understand that they should choose a niche but something, somewhere, is stopping them. So you may recognize some of these statements yourself, things you may have thought or you may have even said out loud.

Firstly:

“I want to be able to Coach anyone.”

There is this fear of turning people away, isn’t there? – That you want to be able to come into Coaching and make a difference to the world; and the idea of turning people away kind of goes against that, so you don’t want to turn any of your potential clients away by concentrating on one specific segment of the market

So there are actually 2 things within that statement:

  1. I want to be able to Coach anyone
  2. I don’t want to turn people away

Another reason why people tend to resist choosing a niche is that they haven’t actually decided what kind of Coaching they want to do or what kind of Coach they want to be; what kind of services do they want to be offering to people?People also resist niches because in order to niche the perception is that you have to be able to be an expert in the area; and when you’re just starting out it’s quite difficult to put yourself out there as an expert if you’re still learning yourself.So I hear people saying: “Oh, I can’t choose a niche because I’m not an expert in anything. I don’t really know more than my clients do about this. And anyway, I’m the facilitator. I’m there to help them. I’m not there to advise them.”Don’t worry about that because your clients aren’t exactly expecting you to be an expert in their situation, but they are expecting you to know a little bit about people like them. That’s what you need to be the expert in – people like them – and how you can help them.Another reason people resist choosing a niche is this statement:

“I need any clients I can get my hands on.”

When you’re starting out there is this kind of ‘scarcity’ factor going on. There is this fear that if you turn one client away you might not ever get another opportunity. So people take on clients who they’re not exactly having a perfect fit with, but just to get some Coaching practice and to get some money in. This is because when you are just starting out you haven’t built a reputation for yourself and you don’t know when the next client might come along. So there is this tendency to take on anyone and everyone just so that you have a thriving practice, so you’re busy all the time.People also say they want to have variety in their practice. They don’t want to just be doing the same thing day in, day out. And do you know what? – If I was doing that I would probably get bored too!I’m going to show you how having a niche can actually give you much more variety – more variety than you probably realized you could have.Now, bearing in mind all of this and all these reasons why people are resisting concentrating on a niche segment of the market, a small section of the market, you’ve got to remember that if you are working full time as a Coach you’re selling your time by the hour, aren’t you?So realistically you can only fit in about a maximum of around 20 x 1 hour sessions each week. Now you might say:

“Oh no, I’ve got a 40 hour working week.”

You’ve got to spend some of that time:

  • Doing admin
  • Following-up with prospects and clients
  • Talking to clients
  • Doing marketing

…plus developing your own skills because you need to be developing and growing all the time yourself if you’re going to be able to help your clients to do that.So realistically you really cannot Coach everyone. If you do pick and choose the kinds of clients that you want to work with – you have a much more rewarding experience. Also when you niche you can have variety.Even if people are coming to you for one issue – in whatever kind of niche it is that you’re working on – the chances are that as you get in a bit deeper with them and you start talking to them, other things are going to come up so you will have some variety.

Service Niche vs. Niche Market

There are two main ways to niche:

  1. The first is the Coaching Niche or the Service Niche, which is what you do. For example: Infidelity Coaching, Sales Training, Life Coaching, etc. So the Service Niche is around what it is that you do.
  2. There is also another way of niching, which is by looking at the Niche Market. And that concentrates on who you do it for and also the people that you target with your marketing. So it might be, for example:
  • Working mums
  • Stressed executives
  • People approaching retirement

So it’s more about the person when you look at the niche market. And there are different ways that you can segment the market. One is demographics. So that’s things like:

  • What do they do for a living?
  • How old are they?
  • Where do they live?

And then there is psychographics. So that’s:

  • People who are of a similar sort of mind set
  • People who are at the same sort of life stage, have the same sort of attitudes

And that could cross a number of different age ranges, for example the sort of person who would read self- help books and spend time at retreats could be 25 or 75 years old and come from all sorts of backgrounds. What they have in common are their mindset and attitudes.So let’s talk about each of those in turn – the Service Niche and the Niche Market.Service NicheWell the Service Niche, focuses on what you do. So this is about the product and the services you provide, e.g. Executive Coaching.The pro’s of that are that if you’re picking a Service Niche, this is good for people who are targeting a mature market where people know what they’re looking for.The con to that, so the downside of it, is that people are often too specific about the service offering. So if you come across people who say “I will only do one-to-one non-directive Confidence Coaching” that might be far too specific and you might be narrowing down your options. So this could be why people have been resisting choosing a niche, because they’re thinking that it has to be offering a particular product or service and nothing else. So there is no variety in there. 

Niche Market

The Niche Market – and this is actually my preferred way of choosing a niche because it’s focusing on the people or the organizations that you want to work with. It focuses on what they’re looking for from you and the solutions to the challenges and the problems that the market has. So it’s very much about the client or the customer, more so than what it is that you’re offering to them.So you’re getting to know the people first – and that’s individuals and organizations. What do they actually want? And then you provide them with the products and services that they’re looking for.The pro side of that is that once you identify a target market or your niche market you can actually offer quite a wide range of products and services, so you’re not just going to be tied into offering services by the hour – you could be doing all sorts of things:

  • Group Coaching
  • E-books
  • Physical books
  • CD’s
  • Tele-classes

By offering products not only are you giving your clients more choice and more resources to work with, according to recent research by IRI you are more likely to be in the higher-earning bracket of coaches.The con or the downside to this is that unless you have got relevant experience, and you’ve got credibility and you’ve got contacts, it can be a bit harder to break into a niche market. It’s not impossible but it can be a little bit tougher to break into a niche market because you need to establish yourself as a credible expert in that area.Below you’ll find a diagram which illustrates each of the three key elements you need to have in the ideal niche market. The most profitable niches can be found where the three circles intersect. Where only two intersect you can find advice on what you need to do to get the third element in place.The perfect niche for you is a fusion of the above 3 circles

  1. Do you have the skills to work in the market you are considering?
  2. Are you truly passionate about the subject of your niche?
  3. Do the people in the niche have a burning problem that you can solve?

Generating ContactsIt might be that you’ve only got enough to cover off 2 out of those 3 circles. So, let’s have a look at it and think about if you’ve got experience and credibility but no contacts.Well one thing I would say is start going out to networking events. Do some lead generation activities. Seek out joint ventures with people who already do have contacts in that market:

  • Can they recommend you?
  • Can they recommend your services, your products?
  • Can they help you to get a foot in the door?

 Gaining experience

If you had something important that you wanted coaching on, would you want to be the first person that your coach had ever worked with? Probably not, so if you’re aiming to attract good quality, paying clients you need to be able to demonstrate what you can by showing you have experience.All is not lost if you’re just getting started as a coach and haven’t worked with many clients yet:

  • Go through your career history/CV/resume and identify where you have experience that’s relevant to what you’re coaching on. It all counts as experience.
  • To gain testimonials and case studies, offer coaching to people who are in your target market in exchange for a permission to use their story in your marketing
  • Make sure that when you select people to practice your coaching skills with that there’s a good fit –are they in the right target market? Do they want help with something you’d like to coach on when you launch?

Earning Credibility

You can have the contacts and the experience, but if no one takes you seriously (or believes what you are saying) you’re in trouble! Credibility comes from not just looking and acting the part, but from having the right connections and credentials.

  • Enlist the help of someone you trust to give you some constructive feedback about how you come across and take on board what they say
  • Make sure you’re a member of the right groups and associations and ensure that you mention them on your website and brochures. If any of your programmes lead to a recognised qualification or are recognised as CPD (continuing professional development) by professional associations this gives you instant credibility
  • Write articles and blog on your specialist area – get your articles published by the magazines, journals and online resources your target market reads

Focus on combining your Niche Market with a Service Niche. So combine what you do with who you do it for. Do some research into your target market and what they are interested in being coached on and how they would like it presented to them. I would always go with what people are asking for, where the demand is because this is where you’re targeting that mature market that I was talking about earlier on – where people know what they want and they’re going out and they’re looking for it.It is much easier to market something that people are asking for and actually want. It is expensive to have to use your marketing to educate your market – where you’re the trail-blazer in the market.Even if you might have come up with something that you think is a gap in the market – there might be reasons why other people aren’t doing it as well.One of those reasons could be that people aren’t actually looking for it; they don’t want it; they don’t need it. Even though you might think there’s a need for it, the clients don’t think so and something else is much more of a pressing need for them and that’s where they’re investing their money at the moment. 

“As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say.I just watch what they do.”Andrew Carnegie

Lesson: Summary Checklist

 Determine your Niche Market. You may need to do this exercise several times if you are not sure of your niche market, and you would like to eliminate some ideas of unique niche markets that you have been thinking about.

  • Have an ideal client profile with:
    1. demographics of your Ideal client
    2. characteristics problems of your Ideal client
    3. problems of your Ideal client
    4. What is the problem you solve for this ideal client?
    5. How important is this issue to the ideal client?
    6. How desperate are they to have the problem solved?
    7. What would they be willing to pay to have this problem solved?
  • Do you know how to solve the client’s problem?
  • How will you Generate Contacts in your Niche Market?
  • How will you Earn Credibility in your Niche Market?
  • How will you Gain & Demonstrate Experience in your Niche Market?

Creating the Marketing Message

 Want to know exactly what it takes to build a business that has clients knock on your door ready to work with you? Here is why you need a compelling Marketing Story.

  1. The Power of Story –your number one and most powerful marketing tool

Your Marketing story connects you with your ideal client. It creates the emotional and energetic bridge from which everything else flows.

  1. Know your Ideal client’s story and make it effortless to be hired –

The story is the connection between your ideal clients’ world and your service. So whenever you think about what your niche is, who you work with and what you do for them, think of it in terms of one person. Step into the shoes of that one person and live their life as it is before they meet you, for just one day. Who are they? What do they do? What are their frustrations, their dreams and their deepest desires? What are they searching for that they want so much that they would give anything to have? What makes them feel good, how do they escape from the stresses of daily life? What excites them? I think you are getting the idea. That’s their story.In order to draw them in and build rapport with them you need to know their story so you can make sure that whatever service you design is the natural next step for them. It’s a no brainer to go ahead and hire you as what you offer is EXACTLY what they need.And what ever their story is also influences what you mention in yours, eg. financial security is important for me and for my ideal client so I make sure I mention it.

  1. Is your Niche viable and does it fit the Zeitgeist?

The opportunities for building a coaching business in this age of abundance are greater than ever before. As people have enough financial means to cover the essentials their minds are freed up to search for more. Our time is characterized by people searching for meaning and purpose. Personal development and spiritual development of all kinds has become main stream. More people than ever (especially women) are starting their own business as a way to express and fulfill their passion. Happy relationships and health have a different meaning today then they had even for our parents. All this is a very fertile ground for new businesses that thrive by assisting people in their search for meaning, happiness and beauty. One such business is “The Empowered Goddess” run by Vicki Anderson, helping women who haven’t had much luck in creating the love relationship they desire to express their femininity while fully standing in their own power which is the ideal foundation for a happy relationship. The time is right for this business with a sky high divorce rate and many women who have reached the success they want in their career desperate to create the happy relationship they so crave.When settling on your niche be sure to choose an ideal client who can afford your fees, is happy to spend the money on what you offer and is easily reachable. It’s also a good idea to go for a client who probably will rave about you to others. There is no money to be made in staying the best kept secret. 

  1. Sell your Expertise in a way that it is easy to buy-

A lot of coaches tell me, “what makes my coaching so valuable is that I create with the client whatever the client needs. There is no one size fits all, right?” Wrong. If you think that clients WANT you to create whatever they need at the time you are mistaken. What clients who consider hiring you want to know is that you can deliver the outcome they are after and you can do it reliably. The human mind is most at ease where there is order. So if you can show that you get your results for clients in a systematic way you will always do better than a coach who says they will do whatever the client needs at the time.It is much easier for a potential client to trust you when you have your step-by-step process you go through every time a client comes to you with a certain problem and it reliably creates the outcomes a client wants. Can you see the attractiveness in that? The perceived risk of “It won’t work for me” is much smaller this way and it’s easier for them to say yes. The excellent ‘side effect’ of this approach is that the value of your service is linked to the value of the outcome you create for your client, rather than your time and effort. This makes it far easier for you to create packages that leverage your time and it’s also easier to raise your fees if they are not tied to an hourly rate.So to create your “system” think about the steps you typically take clients through in order to get them their outcome. Chances are you have a system and use it regularly unconsciously and it’s just waiting to be documented. Have you noticed this chapter I am writing describes my system?

  1. Package it up with a nice wrapping –

People love to buy packages. If you are one of those coaches that still charges an hourly rate, please stop doing it now. I mean it. You are not serving your client in the best possible way. When you package your services so your clients know they will get a certain outcome at the end, they get excited about buying it because in their mind they are buying the outcome. Clients don’t really want to buy coaching anyway, they want to buy an outcome. Give it to them.It’s much easier for a client to say ‘yes’ once and then relax and just focus on working with you rather than having to make a buying decision every time they see you. Needless to say it’s a lot better for your bank account to sell packages. It means consistent and predictable cash flow.Packages should wherever possible contain things other than only your service. Give clients a way to take you and your expertise home with them, for example in an audio or video format. It increases the perceived value of your offering by making it more tangible. It’s easier for your client that way to justify the purchase on a rational level after they have already made the emotional buying decision earlier on. It’s what seals the deal and makes sure the client will stay the distance throughout your time together.What do I mean by wrapping? I mean a solid list of benefits your clients will get by buying the package. And yes, quantity matters here. Make a list of all the specific outcomes your client can expect from working with you. You should have at least ten, more is better. 

  1. Educate and inspire your ideal clients –

Once you have designed your business according to the steps I outlined it’s time to start the conversation with your ideal clients. Not everybody will say ‘yes’ to you straight away but your continuing regular conversation can educate them on the value you can create for them so that it inspires them into taking action. Giving your ideal client some bites of information upfront that they can use (for free) creates a positive expectancy for the value your whole package can create.When I say conversations I refer to an online newsletter. You definitely need one and you want to be in your ideal clients’ inbox at least fortnightly. It’s the way to build the Know-like-trust factor you need to build before your ideal client says ‘yes’ to you. Give them value and share something personal and it will earn you the right to invite them to accept your offers. It requires commitment, and it’s worth it.Doing all of these steps will ensure that you will create that steady stream of ideal clients you want. Find out exactly what makes a good marketing story that engages your ideal clients emotionally.

Lesson: Exercise

  • Have a compelling Story related to the service you offer that connects you with your clients (eg. How you got to be in this business)
  • Great a step by step system to get your clients the results
  • Communicate and educate your clients about the step by step system
  • Base your packages on this system and offer it at different price points
  • Communicate with your niche market: educate and inspire your ideal clients
  • Publish a regular ezine/newsletter-weekly or fortnightly
  • Tell them about yourself
  • Educate them with useful information
  • Offer them free tele-seminars and your paid programs
  • Run monthly free teleseminars