A lot of my clients are coaches with various specialties. Now, when most coaches first start out, they face a lot of the same challenges such as:
- Where to find clients?
- "Should I reach out to my current network to find clients?"
One of my former clients, Tiffani, had to deal with those questions while struggling to get her business off the ground. Eventually, she turned it all around and went from three to six figures by the third month in her business.
Following is how she did it:
Reaching Out To Her Current Network
When first starting out, a lot of coaches don't have a big network of people to tap into. For example, a new dating coach may not have a personal database of singles to reach out to in the beginning. Or, a new business coach may not have a big list of business owners.
Tiffani only had 125 people in her network and very few of them were potential business owners that she could coach. She started calling people on her list, but nothing happened.
Note: A lot of people hear that they should start calling the people they know. It isn’t bad advice, but it isn’t always the best way to start.
The Backup Plan
Two months after going into her business full-time, she still had no clients and her money was running low. She feared that she'd have to use her backup plan, which was to commute from Seattle to Beverly Hills to do plastic surgery, which wasn’t ideal.
Note: When transitioning into full-time coaching, I recommend you have a plan in place to make the income change happen as smoothly as possible.
Idea That Changed It All
After trying a lot of things that didn’t work, she had an idea to host a seminar where she’d teach something related to business growth.
Note: Public speaking is a great way to get awareness and clients.
Coaching Is A Big Head Game
There’s a big head game that goes on when you decide to be a coach because you have to overcome a lot of your own inner doubts. And by now, she was exhausted and doubtful. She’d seen so many others be successful at it, but wondered if it would ever happen for her.
She finished planning the event and two weeks before it was scheduled to happen, she realized she hadn’t promoted it. So, she started attending different networking events where she promoted her seminar. By the time of the event, she had 19 people to show up.
Offer a Free Session
At the end of her seminar, she offered a free business coaching acceleration session. Out of the 19 people who showed up, about 10 took her up on the offer.
Within two weeks of holding those sessions, she had seven new clients signed up to work with her at $1500/ month each. That was even more than she was paying me at the time!
We Doubled Down
Another problem that surfaced during our work together was Tiffani’s email list. She told me that her subscribers did not respond well to sales emails and that standard online marketing tactics backfired in her market.
Before we can brainstorm solutions, first we need to understand WHY the problem is occurring. Why were her subscribers not buying?
To understand what was going on, I conducted a full scale audit of her business and marketing. I discovered that her email subscribers had been trained to see her as a charity--a fountain of free content. This made it harder to sell to them. One of the reasons for this is she was creating too much free content.
Wait… but why is this a problem? Aren’t you supposed to give value for free until your subscribers know, like and trust you enough to buy?
Not always. People value what they pay for. Giving everything away for free hurts you because it devalues your work. It also hurts the people you’re trying to help, because they are less likely to take action on your advice.
Once I understood what the problem was, and why it was happening, I could devise the right solution. Part of that solution was to completely change her email marketing strategy. Specifically, I showed her a way to create “soft sell” emails, which look like content but trigger an overpowering urge to buy. These don’t look like “sales emails”. They are the kind of emails busy subscribers *make* time to read (and actually love to buy from).
If you are wondering why your subscribers aren’t buying, I can help you find out why. If you want to convert more of your email subscribers into paying customers, I can help with that also. Here is how:
I’ll conduct an audit of your online business, fix your marketing strategy, and write up all my recommendations in an optimization report. Then we’ll go over it together. I’m only going to offer three of these optimization reports in August at $997 each.
It Got Even Better
Because everything went so well, it helped to build her confidence to bring in other people. Soon her fees went up to $2250/month.
That's how Tiffani grew her business from three to six figures in 72 days.
How This Can Work For You
If you're wanting to grow your business, keep in mind that your situation may not be like Tiffani's or any other person for that matter. Some people I've worked with have grown their businesses at record speed, and others have taken a little longer.
Just know that as long as you're willing to do the work on yourself (inner game/mindset) and take consistent action out in the world, success inevitable.
The only mystery is time.