Coaching Biz Tips

Web 2.0 and Social Networking for Coaches

I've been Twittering for about 9 months now, with surprisingly good results: lots of great connections, excellent response to questions I've posted, and actual NEW CLIENTS who came to me not through my regular marketing channels, but via Twitter. What's not to love?!

As I was sharing this good news with a friend a while back, it occurred to me that it might be time to give this whole Web 2.0 thing a closer look from a marketing strategy perspective.

5 More Coaching Business Deathtraps

This is the second in a series of two posts on coaching business death traps. Read the first post here.

6. Over-optimism -- Expecting your business to do better than reasonably possible given the available resources (time, capitalization & materials). There's a certain naivete among first-time business owners – some might also call it denial – that usually ends in a rather harsh wake-up call. Most successful businesses take more time, money and effort than expected, not less. Don't count your chickens before they're hatched.

7. Failing to make the connection to the customer's bottom line  --  If your product or program can save your customer time, money or effort, make sure that these savings are clearly stated. In fact, do the math for your customers; be as specific as possible. Too many coaches focus only on the process of coaching, and not enough on the results that coaching produces.

8. Not giving the customer a compelling reason to buy – The most successful coaches know the major factors that their customers are going to consider when buying coaching services or products, and they also know how they compare to their competitors.

This awareness is important for two reasons: 1) You can't make your offer compelling if you don't know what your customer's priorities are; and 2) If you want to stand out and be noticed, you obviously need to know what you're standing out from.

If you fail to show that any fully informed buyer would be crazy not to seriously consider purchasing your service or product, the buyer has no reason to choose you – so they probably won't.   

9. Trying to sell without marketing -- I know you're passionate about coaching; you've probably invested hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars learning how to be a great coach.

You've reinvented yourself as the best thing since sliced bread; you just need some clients so you can get to work. So how come the world isn't beating a path to your door?

This should not be a surprise - very few coaches are experienced marketers. Doing marketing well is every bit as difficult and specialized as mastering the art of coaching itself. It is absolutely critical that you develop this talent as quickly as possible.

So for example, don't make the mistake of bombarding your mailing list (or social network, or the NCC YahooGroup listserv, etc.) with nothing but promotions. Marketing is about building trust and credibility; it's about cultivating an on-going relationship that's mutually beneficial. The sale cannot happen until AFTER the customer knows and trusts you.

10. Throwing good money after bad -- "I'm in too far to walk away" - in other words, failing to admit that you made a mistake with your marketing strategy. Ask yourself, "Would I invest the time and money in this strategy today if it was presented to me as a fresh opportunity?"

Another way to tell if you've made a mistake is to ask yourself if any of the following statements are true:

• Overall, this project has been a major disappointment.
• At some point, the expense (in time and/or money) could drain the healthy parts of my business.
• Most importantly, the resources invested so far are gone - my cost basis is zero!

If you answered yes to any of the above, it's probably time to cut your losses and move on to the next opportunity.

Have I missed a particularly nasty deathtrap? Leave me a message below if you've got a story to share!

5 Coaching Business Deathtraps

What are the most common (and avoidable) fatal business mistakes that coaches tend to make?

1.  Lack of focus -- Your most precious resource is your attention. Doing one thing well is an enormous challenge; tackling three or four things at once is a recipe for mediocrity.

Carefully sort through your marketing options before you choose which one to focus on (one target market/one problem/one solution). Commit to which ever option is most likely to be successful, and stick to it!

2. Inadequate market research -- Failure to do adequate market research, including getting out into the marketplace and talking to as many high-potential customers as possible before committing to a marketing strategy, is asking for trouble. Google is a great place to start.

3. Perfectionism – Lots of coaches have great ideas for coaching products and programs. Some just can't seem to stop fiddling with it until it's perfect.

This is an unrealistic goal. There's always an improvement that can be made, a bell or a whistle than can be added. When you've developed your product or program to the point where it represents a clearly superior choice, stick a fork in it and call it done.

4. Getting swallowed by a whale – Executive coaches are particularly vulnerable to "whale" clients. Imagine that you have the opportunity to get a contract that could cover all your expenses and then some. That's the good news. The bad news is that this one contract is going to consume ALL your time and attention for the foreseeable future.

And the worst part is that when the whale spits you out (trust me, it will happen, usually at the worst possible time), you'll be stuck with a whole lotta nothing. No clients, no cash flow and no prospects in the pipeline.

Now, I'm not necessarily suggesting that you should turn down a juicy opportunity. I'm just saying you still need to keep working on the rest of your business so that you're not dependent on any particular customer.

5. Living large before you're earning large -- Show me a start-up coaching business with a swanky leased office space, shiny new furniture and equipment, and a virtual "staff" spread across the globe (virtual assistant, webmaster, bookkeeper, etc.), and I will show you a prescription for failure. In most cases, it's all paid for by credit card. And the coach is sitting by themselves in the swanky office, wondering where all the clients are.

Lack of cash flow is death to any business. Spend your resources only when it makes a true difference, when it stands to directly impact your objectives.

Stay tuned for more traps to watch out for. Until then, leave a comment to let me know what you think.

Myth: My Subscribers Will Get Pissed if I Promote Myself

Imagine it: Your list is finally starting to gain momentum. You're pouring your heart into your newsletter or blog. You're going out of your way to give 5-star value to your list. You've been working night and day to make sure your sales funnel is positively stuffed with goodies…

But nobody's buying.

What's going on? Why aren't you getting clients and making sales?

There are a number of possible reasons, but the most likely is that you're not getting business because you're not promoting your coaching products and services. And you're not promoting because you're afraid of pissing off your subscribers.

See, there's this wackadoodle idea floating around that you're supposed to get coaching customers without… well, without marketing, promoting or selling. There, I said it.

MARKETING. PROMOTING. SELLING.

How rude! You're hoping people will take the hint and buy something without having to be asked in a direct way. 'Cuz if you're direct about it, they might get pissed and unsubscribe.

Warning: Radical Idea Alert

To that, I say, "I WANT them to unsubscribe."

Huh?!? Why on earth would I want people to unsubscribe from my list?

Simple: My list is part of my prospecting system, and the whole point of the prospecting system is to convert qualified prospects to customers. Key word: QUALIFIED. And if someone doesn't want to receive promotional offers from me, that's a pretty good indication that they are not qualified to be a customer.

Qualified prospects:

• Are seeking a solution to a need
• Are motivated to make a purchase
• Have the financial resources to make the purchase
• Have the authority to make the buying decision

I want my list to be 100% qualified, so when an unqualified prospect unsubscribes, it's a GOOD THING. It means the system is working!

Qualified prospects WANT what you're offering

If you let the fear of losing subscribers keep you from serving your customers, you won't be in business very long.

Of course, you want to make sure to give subscribers whatever free information or value you promised when they joined your list; you don't want to bombard them with nothing but offers – just don't be afraid to promote your products and services when it's appropriate.

Qualified prospects will thank you by saying yes or asking questions; unqualified prospects will either ignore the offer or leave the list. And if they're not a qualified prospect for you, they probably belong on someone else's list, right?

Bottom line: Don't be afraid to promote to your list; it's an essential step in the customer qualification process.

7 Ways to Wreck Your Sales Funnel

Recently, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Simon Allard on one of my favorite subjects: Marketing a coaching business (specifically, sales funnels and multiple streams of income). Listen to the interview for free here.

I thought I'd outline some of the tips we discussed here on the blog, only instead of doing the predictable thing and listing what TO do, I figured it might be interesting to look at this from the "what NOT to do" perspective.

First: "Tell me again, what's a sales funnel and why do I need one?"

A sales funnel is simply a way to describe how you get, keep and grow the lifetime value of customers. It defines the stages that people move through in your business and the strategies you use to help them move from one stage to the next.

Without a well-planned sales funnel, you're much more likely to have gaps in your marketing system -- and gaps can be fatal.

So if your business is not what you want it to be – if your list isn't growing; if getting clients seems harder than necessary; if your marketing is landing on deaf ears – check to see if any of these techniques for wrecking your sales funnel sounds familiar.

7 ways to wreck your sales funnel

#1: Just say no to a target market.

What do you say when someone asks, "Who do you work with?" If your answer begins with "Anyone" or "Everyone," or if you can't outline the problem that your business helps them with in a simple sentence, your market is probably too broad. And the broader your market, the less relevant you'll seem to individual prospects.

Unfortunately, a broad market is something few self-employed coaches can afford. It eats into your profitability, because proving that you're relevant to a variety of people with widely different goals and needs takes more time and effort.

It's far more profitable (and easier!) to focus on a well-defined target market – a group of consumers who share certain key characteristics, including a common problem or goal. You'll find that it's easier to connect with potential customers and help them get the results they're looking for.

Bottom line: Make sure you have a clear understanding of your target market and the problem that your business solves.

Get rid of marketing overwhelm once and for all

I hear from a lot of coaches that they're overwhelmed by all the advice and information available on marketing. Most coaches actually know quite a bit about the subject of marketing – they just don't know where to begin or how to tell if they're on the right track.

How do you know if you're taking the right steps with your marketing? Answer: It depends on your objective.

There's an endless number of possibilities when it comes to marketing a business, but there are basically only three ways to grow a business:

1. Increase the number of leads

2. Increase the conversion rate of leads to customers

3. Increase the average dollar amount that each customer spends over time

So the question becomes, "Of those three objectives, which one is most critical to focus on right now?" Once you're clear about your objective, the options for marketing activities will seem less overwhelming.

For example:

• Coach Mike has a knack for "closing the deal". He knows his target market inside and out and he's got great people skills – when he has an initial consultation with someone, they usually end up hiring him. If he could get more initial meetings scheduled, he could get more clients. So Mike's key marketing objective is to increase the number of leads by setting up a prospect marketing system and becoming more visible to his target market.

• Coach Debra has worked hard to build a targeted mailing list. She has a loyal following of subscribers who love her newsletters; the problem is that she doesn't have as many customers as she'd like. Studies show that a customer who buys once is far more likely to buy again, so Debra's marketing objective is to improve conversion. She'll want to make sure she's offering enticing introductory products to her subscribers – products that are low in cost but high in value, such as ebooks, ecourses or audio products. She also needs to make sure she's encouraging prospects to take action sooner rather than later, to shorten the conversion cycle as much as possible.

• <Coach Wendy is an experienced coach who has worked with lots of 1-1 clients over the years. She's carved out a nice niche for herself and is really good at helping her clients accomplish their goals in a short amount of time. The problem is that once the goals are accomplished, the clients move on, so Wendy is constantly worried about getting more new clients. What she needs to do is expand her offerings for clients who have completed the initial coaching contract in order to grow the value of each client and create additional revenue streams so that she isn't so dependent upon 1-1 coaching clients each month.

If you've been feeling stuck about what you should be doing with your marketing, take a step back and decide what's most important for your business right now: getting more leads, converting more prospects to customers, or growing the lifetime value of existing customers. And then figure out the most obvious action steps you'll need to take to get that done. Once you're on track with the first objective, you can turn your attention to the next.

10 Tips for a Profitable and Sustainable Business Model

An earlier article explored how to tell if your business model is broken; today I want to share ten tips for building a profitable and sustainable business model.

First, a few words about what I mean by "business model", and why you should care.

Basically, a business model defines the problem your business solves and describes how it does so profitably.

By "problem", I mean the gap between where your customer is now and where they want to go. Every customer wants something that they don't yet have; your business helps them close that gap.

The "profitably" part is the key to why you should care – because if your business doesn't operate profitably, you're not going to be able to help many clients! When your business makes more money than it takes to operate, you can reinvest your profits back into the business in order to grow. But if you're spending more than you're making – for example, needing to use your credit cards to pay your bills -- you're probably going to run out of resources pretty quick.

What does a profitable business look like?

Imagine two coaches who are starting out on the same path: Coach Alison and Coach Brenda.

• They have similar experience and education
• They live in the same city
• They have similar financial situations
• They're both going after the same type of client -- baby boomer women
• After 18 months, one business is healthy and growing, while the other is teetering on the edge of collapse

Coach Alison is following the well-worn path that many coaches follow right out of training. (See "Is Your Business Model Broken?") After working diligently for 18 months, she's got a lovely web site; 157 people on her mailing list; 5 clients (2 are pro bono; another isn't really a baby boomer woman, but she can't afford to be picky); a maxed-out line of credit; and a husband who is starting to wonder what she's doing all day. Alison is starting to wonder that, herself.

Coach Brenda is having a very different experience. She's getting new subscribers every day, and virtually all of them are in her target market; many on her list have already purchased her new ebook, and almost everyone who buys the ebook goes on to buy something else (an audio program, a teleclass or a  coaching package); she has a waitlist of people who want to work with her at her new rate; and her husband is starting to wonder if he should quit his day job to become a coach, too.

Why is one business struggling while the other is succeeding?

What's Brenda's secret? It's not a secret so much as a winning strategy. Alison is using a one-size-fits-all business model, while Brenda's is custom-designed for success and sustainability. Here are ten tips for creating your own profitable and sustainable business model:

1. Start with a relationship-building mindset. Customers tend to buy from people that they know, like and trust; the best way to do that is to show them that you understand what they're struggling with and that you have a proven track record of success with their issue. (Hint: they're not struggling with coaching, so stop talking about coaching and start listening for the real problem.)
2. Define the problem that your business solves so that you can talk about your clients' coachable goals with clarity and credibility. To see some examples of coachable goals, see this article.
3. Identify a viable market segment that is already spending money on the problem that your business solves. The segment should be specific enough to share certain buying behaviors, yet large enough to support your business.
4. Aim your marketing promotions directly at the target market. Don't try to be all things to all people; you'll only frustrate yourself and confuse your prospects. For example, while Coach Brenda is narrowly targeting (and attracting) female baby boomer executives who are facing a major career transition such as retirement, Coach Alison is having less luck finding and connecting with a broader, less exclusive market (baby boomers who want to thrive.)
5. Create a sales funnel so your customers have a natural, easy path to follow, from joining your mailing list to making their first purchase to hiring you as their coach. Click here to see an example of a sales funnel for coaches.
6. Differentiate yourself from other coaching businesses so that your brand stands out in a memorable way. There are many ways to differentiate yourself other than pricing, by the way -- for example, packaging, service, expertise, positioning, etc.
7. Don't trade time for money. Switch to a monthly retainer or package rate, rather than quoting an hourly or monthly rate. Stop selling your time and start promoting the value of your services.
8. Expand your revenue base by creating multiple channels of income – info products, audio products, group coaching programs, paid membership programs, etc. When you spread your profits over a range of income streams, your cash flow tends to be much more consistent and stable (and LARGER).
9. Automate your marketing system to free yourself up to do what you truly love (coaching!). At the very least, use a reputable list management system with auto responders  -- Aweber, iContact and 1Shoppingcart are three popular choices.
10. Take a stand for the value you provide; offer options instead of discounts. If a prospect balks at your premium coaching package, point them towards a less-comprehensive coaching package, a group coaching program or a coach-yourself homestudy kit.

With the right business model, you'll get more business, more easily and be able to make a bigger difference with more people. And isn't making a difference with more people the whole point?

©2008 by Kathleen L. Mallary. All Rights Reserved.

Don't fantasize yourself out of business (Part 3 of 3)

Part 1 explored a common but misguided approach to growing a coaching business, and Part 2  explained why that approach doesn't work. In Part 3, we'll explore a more realistic (and ultimately more  successful) approach to growing your business.

OK, the fantasy has evaporated like morning dew on a hot summer day, and the inconvenient truths have been faced with courage. Now what?

Now it's time to explore what really works. First of all, there are three things that every successful business does well:

1. Get customers
2. Keep customers
3. Grow the lifetime value of customers

No matter what kind of industry you're in or who your customers are, and regardless of whether you sell widgets, roller coaster rides or a personal service like coaching, you must consistently accomplish all three in order to have a successful business.

Don't fantasize yourself out of business (Part 2 of 3)

Part 1 explored a common approach to growing a coaching business. Part 2  explains why that approach doesn't work.

3 Inconvenient Truths About Growing a Successful Coaching Business

Truth #1: Customers don't care who you are, what you're passionate about or how much you want to help them.

Well, they might care at some point, but trust me, they don't care about any of that yet. They mostly care about who THEY are and what THEY'RE passionate about, and they care about being, doing or having _________________ (fill in the blank with whatever your target market's common agenda is).

Don't fantasize yourself out of business (Part 1 of 3)

One of the happy benefits of focusing on the same target market over time is that you start to see certain patterns and biases. Close scrutiny affords a much more intimate, richly textured view of your customers and their issues -- issues that are actually inconvenient truths that must be confronted if your customer has any hope of success.

For instance, I've noticed that my own customers sometimes have a rather fantastic vision for how they're going to grow their business. And by fantastic, I don't just mean wonderful; I mean as in, "based in fantasy."

It goes something like this: