The Coaching Academy Blog

As a trainer and coach, one of the areas fellow coaches and business owners want to work on most is how they can develop a simple and effective marketing strategy – because the reality is if you have one you can expect your business to grow, and if you don’t it probably won’t.

The good news is that developing a great marketing plan can be easy, fun – and when you begin to see the results you’ll just want to do even more of it.

• Question: when should a coach think about marketing?
• Answer: all the time!

Successful business leaders, no matter how busy or profitable their market share is now, always keep an eye on developing new and exciting opportunities for the future. For a coach, since we are also business owners, this rule applies to us, too.

Stephen Covey suggests our present knowledge has a ‘half shelf life of two years’, and by that he suggests that up to half of what we know today will become redundant within the next two years. This blows the ‘doing what you’ve always done – getting what you’ve always got’ equation out of the water.

The reality is that no matter how busy and successful you are, you should always keep an eye on developing future opportunities, because if you don’t you can be sure others’ will.

In coming toward my 7th anniversary as a full time Personal Career Coach, I can say that whilst a percentage of new clients come via referral and recommendation, some will still find me and be convinced to coach with me as a result of my marketing.

Whether you are new to coaching, or have been practicing a while, whether you are putting together your first marketing plan, or have one already, it’s always a good idea to ask yourself ‘and what am I going to do next’. Following are tips and ideas I use to help grow and keep my practice busy. Use the ideas that best resonate with you, since the best marketing should always be an extension of your personality.

Mike’s Top Tips for Marketing!

1. Have a marketing plan. It’s amazing that whilst most businesses spend time creating a business plan, they forget the importance of a marketing plan to sit alongside it. In simple terms, a marketing plan is a template of how you plan to communicate with present and future clients over a determined time frame (usually a year). If your communication is fresh, interesting and useful to those who receive it, they will buy your product. You can have your marketing plan on the wall on a white board, on your computer, or written down – the place you’re most likely to keep it up-to-date and read constantly is the place it needs to be for you.

2. The main product – YOU! From a marketing point of view ‘you the coach’ are the product. Spending time to clarify what it is you bring to the world of coaching so that a prospective client can understand why they should work with you is really valuable. Thinking about your values will help in deciding how to present yourself. Marketing is all about creating an image of who we are and what we stand for. In short, having a point of view, even being a little controversial, will help. From a client’s view point, they must know who you are before they’ll consider buying your services.

3. Be relevant. In NLP it’s suggested that ‘the person with the most flexibility will achieve the greatest success.’ What could this mean to you with regards marketing? Research suggests consumers buy a product after at least 5 contacts. What could those 5 contacts be for you? Many coaches write articles, have a website and send out newsletters. Social networking is now an established fact of life. If you’re not yet familiar with the world of eNewsletters, Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, You Tube, etc you could be missing a vast array of mostly free advertising and marketing opportunities. Spend time getting to know the various options and mediums – then rather than go with the one you feel most comfortable with, ask yourself ‘what would my future prospective client find most useful’ – and go with that instead.

4. Have something to say. What to write about? Obviously, the seasons, all the holidays and special days throughout the year, news headlines, trends, fashion – the list is endless. What’s your point of view? As mentioned above, don’t be bland, ‘all things to all people’ – people don’t trust people who don’t have a point of view. Being a leader, which as a coach you will be, is about saying what you think and having a passion during marketing – after all, I’m guessing you’re passionate about coaching: so get writing!!

5. Products. As a coach, how flexible could you be in providing your coaching services? Here are some ideas – which could apply to you?

a. Individual face-to-face, telephone, Skype, video, or email coaching
b. Group (as above) coaching
c. Online coaching programmes – including audio
d. eBooks

6. It’s never too late… Finally, one of the main benefits of having a marketing plan is that it allows you to plan ahead. New Year is the busiest time for new coaching business, since it’s the time most people set goals. From a marketing point of view, the time to submit articles to magazines is mid-summer, for national newspapers Sept/Oct, and local press mid November. A marketing plan will help you with this and can remind you in good time to start writing your articles, and also who’s who and where to send them off to.

PS: Whilst New Year is the busiest time because it’s when most people plan, from a marketing point of view you can create a buzz any other time of year, too. For the first couple of years as a coach I used to believe summer was a quiet time…until I decided to start marketing summer time coaching (which starts going to press during spring). From that point on, summer has always been equally busy.

I hope this helps you to grow your business. Marketing is fun, and is best when it’s as individual as you are.

All the best, Mike xx

You can contact Mike through The Coaching Academy at info@the-coaching-academy.com