Coaches do not plan to fail but they do fail to plan and the result is a coaching business with few clients. If you are going to have a successful coaching business, you must have a marketing plan and you must work that plan diligently and consistently. That means taking action every day to ensure that you reach your goal of growing a successful coaching business.
Tell me about your marketing plan? I give that response to coaches who ask me, how do I get more clients. The question gets to the heart of the problem they have no marketing plan. I will list several coaching marketing strategies that you must utilize every week to have a successful and growing coaching business.
Networking
Networking with potential clients and people who can refer clients to you is the first step to stand out in your market. Attend networking meeting and groups that are compatible to your niche coaching market. Do not go to meetings where other coaches are! Go to meeting where your niche-coaching clients are. Joing groups that your niche coaching clients belong to. You can learn even more about your niche market by attending these meetings and listening for challenges and goals that you can help your target clients with. Search for others in businesses that target the same niche market and become referral partners. Go to events that target your niche market such as conventions and conferences.
Direct Contact
Make sure you have direct contact with current coaching clients, past coaching clients, and potential coaching clients. Staying in contact with former clients is an area that most coaches overlook. People have lives that are constantly changing and they may need coaching again. Develop a newsletter, offer consistent free reports, write personal notes or letters, make check up phone calls, take people to lunch or out to coffee. You have to make contact with potential clients so they can begin to know, like and trust you.
Gain Expert Status
Become known as an expert in your niche through public speaking. When ou speak in front of a group you immediately establish expert status. Find groups that people in your niche join and offer to speak to them free. Develop a workshop that will give benefit to your audience and show them how your coaching can help them and offer introductory sessions at the end of your presentation. Be sure to collect contact information so you can stay in contact with audience members.
These are just a few of the many possible strategies available to you. The key to marketing success is to determine the strategies you will use then make a plan to use them consistently and follow through with that plan on a daily basis. I tell my coaches to use three different marketing strategies every day. A marketing plan that uses effective strategies and is consistently applied will always result in success.
About the Author:
Suzan Schmitt is a Coach that has over 20 years experience in advertising, marketing and sales. She helps coaches market their coaching businesses and get more coaching clients. Suzan Schmitt: The Coach
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340
Date Published :
Feb 4 2009