By Gladeana Mcmahon and Antoinette Oglethorpe
This fourth article in the series considers the in-person marketing approaches you can use to get your coaching business known to potential clients
Part four: Getting your name known
Unless you are starting your coaching business with a ready-made list of contacts, you will need to make yourself and your services known to potential clients and referral sources. There are myriad ways to do it. In this article, we’ll look at some of the main ones and which approaches work best for coaches setting up on their own (McMahon, Palmer & Wilding 2006).
Clients will hire you as their coach if they believe you have the skills and capabilities to help them solve their problem and they trust they can work with you to achieve it.
Consequently, clients who are going to hire a coach are likely to prefer ‘in-person’ marketing approaches that give you the opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of the client’s challenges and your capabilities. This also allows you to show your personality and develop a relationship.
Outlined below are four in-person approaches you can use to market your coaching business.
1 Client development
As most coaches will realise, the easiest and most successful way of developing business is to get more work from existing clients. That may be a specific individual signing up for a continuation of their coaching programme or another service you provide. Equally, it may be by being asked to work with more individuals from the same organisation.
The great thing about this approach is that its success relies on what you would be doing anyway – a great job for the individuals you are working with. However, it also relies on your creating opportunities for discussions with your clients about the kinds of challenges they are experiencing and how you and your services can help (Dawson, 2011).
2 Referrals
Referrals are a natural extension to client development in that existing clients and contacts recommend you to new contacts. The key challenge is that you need to summon up the courage to ask for the referral and to make it as easy as possible for your clients and contacts to identify them. So, as we discussed last issue (‘Defining Your Target Client’, vol 8, issue 3), you need to be able to clearly describe who you work best with and who you’re looking to be referred to.
Give your clients and contacts advanced warning of your request. For example, as you approach the end of the coaching relationship, you might say, “It’s been great to work with you. I wondered whether you would mind if I gave you a ring next week to see if there is anyone you know who you think might be interested in finding out more about the kind of coaching I provide?”
3 Networking
Networking is a word that can strike fear into some people. All they see is a group of strangers standing around eating peanuts and thrusting business cards into each other’s hands. Effective networking is not about that at all. The worst thing you can do is to try and ‘sell’ at a networking event. Instead, it is an opportunity to meet potential clients and referrers face to face and simply start a relationship with them.
As with a lot of marketing, it takes a certain amount of courage to walk into a room full of strangers, but here are some tips that can help (Kuzmeski, 2011):
When meeting someone new, focus on them. Ask them about them; don’t just focus on business. Ask them how they got here, how they’re finding the event, what they’re looking for from the event, who they’re aiming to meet.
We have often noticed how in networking situations many coaches seem to forget their coaching alliance skills, yet the very skills we use with clients to build a relationship will work equally well in such situations.
Have a few words prepared that describe the kind of clients you work with, the challenges you help them with and the coaching services you offer. Just don’t make it sound like a script.
If the conversation goes well and it seems as though it could be a valuable relationship to develop further, ask for their business card and request permission to contact them to arrange to meet for coffee.
If you don’t feel that asking to meet for a coffee is quite right, at least make sure you ask the individual if you might add them to your mailing list or send them information from time to time. Then make sure you follow up.
4 Public speaking and seminars
Public speaking and seminars allow you to showcase your expertise (and your personality) to a group of people. It can work extremely well if you are a skilled and interesting speaker and if you can find an audience of your target clients and talk about a subject of interest (National Speakers Association, 2012).
If this is an approach you want to try, make sure you can speak well in public as your capabilities will often be judged on how well and entertainingly you speak. If this is a skill you wish to develop, it is worth joining Toastmasters or another speaking club. Alternatively, you might find a public speaking course at a local college or institute.
It can be hard to publicise a seminar ‘cold’ so try piggybacking on existing events. Professional associations and networking groups often want speakers. Try approaching local management groups, eg, the local branch of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, the Chartered Management Institute, the Chamber of Commerce, the Institute of Directors or your local Confederation of British Industry.
Once you have an opportunity to speak, make sure you develop potential business leads. Try the following:
Help advertise the event by sending a notice (or press release) to your local paper and through social media.
Make sure your talk has a call to action that allows you to collect the details of interested attendees, eg: “If you’d like a copy of my report on how to manage stress, please leave me your contact details at the end.”
A lot of coaches feel uncomfortable about marketing their services and selling themselves. However, if you
are going to be successful in business, you really have no choice.
Try selecting approaches you feel more comfortable with at first and then build from that.
Gladeana McMahon is UK chair of the Association for Coaching
www.gladeanamcmahon.com
Antoinette Oglethorpe provides executive coaching, training and facilitation for organisations
www.antoinetteoglethorpe.com
References
G McMahon, S Palmer and C Wilding, Achieving Excellence in your Coaching Practice: How to Run a Highly Successful Coaching Business, London: Routledge, 2006
R Dawson, Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships (2nd Ed.), London: Routledge, 2011
M Kuzmeski, The Connectors: How the World’s Most Successful Businesspeople Build Relationships and Win Clients for Life, USA: Wiley, 2011
National Speakers Association, Speak More!: Marketing Strategies to Get More Speaking Business, UK: River Grove Books, 2012
Coaching at work, Volume 8, Issue 4