by Eric Dombach | Business Coach Training
Your first objective in business coach marketing is to develop an unlimited marketing budget.
It sounds like a pie-in-the-sky promise, but it’s actually a sound business principle. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s how all profitable business operate–whether they know it or not.
To understand the power of this principle, I want you to consider marketing from a whole new perspective.
Contrary to popular belief, marketing isn’t about being “creative” or sneaky or pushy. Instead, it’s about investing your dollars or time to acquire clients–a simple transaction that can be replicated over and over again (in fact, it must be for any business to survive, including yours).
So stop thinking about marketing as a chore or a mystery. It’s as much a science as it is an art form.
And once you begin to establish some basic metrics, you can act with total confidence that you’ll always have the money you need to create more business.
The Unlimited Marketing Budget Explained
Let me show you how this works in concrete terms.
Let’s say your average new client earns you an average income of $1500 per month. And let’s say, on average, they stick around for three months.
That means every new client is worth $4500 to you (we all know these are extremely conservative figures, but I’m doing that for a reason, so stick with me here).
Based on these metrics, how much can you afford to spend on marketing?
Well, theoretically, you could spend up to $4500 to bring in a new client–and still break even!
Of course, you want to do much, much better than that. But let’s say you have to spend $2000 to secure a new client through advertising, direct mail, telemarketing services, whatever. You might feel nervous “going in the hole” $500 on the first month’s transaction.
However, once you realize you’re not $500 in the hole, but $2500 ahead, suddenly you’re empowered to increase your marketing budget so that you continue to bring in $4500 clients that only cost you $2000!
Do you see?
This is a game changer.
You’re no longer asking, “How much should I spend on marketing?”
Now you’re asking, “How fast can I spend it?”
How fast can I spend my way to six figures?
Or a million?
Or more!
You have an “Unlimited Marketing Budget!”
You're no longer asking, "How much should I spend on marketing?" Now you're asking, "How fast can I spend it?" How fast can I spend my way to six figures? Or a million? Or more!
This is precisely the principle I used to grow my business so quickly…and a concept I teach to all my coaches to empower them to be aggressive marketers in their practices, too.
Of course, if you’re like most coaches, there’s just one question in your mind:
How do I find campaigns that work…and work predictably?
I’ve found that there are seven tactics of effective business coach marketing, each of which I explain in depth in my free ebook, Secrets Of A Business Coaching Rock Star. Give it a quick download, and begin to tap into your unlimited growth potential!
by Eric Dombach | How to Become a Business Coach
As much as anything, success is about habits–what I like to call doing the right things in small amounts over a long period of time. But how does that translate to day-by-day living? What’s a day in the life of a successful business coach really like?
Everyone is different, so you’ll find the rhythm that works for you, but it helps to have models. So I thought I’d share mine with you.
By the way, I highly recommend creating a default daily calendar–that is to say, craft a pattern for how will you spend each day, based on what you need to do to hit your goals. For best results, schedule your day in chunks: for example, marketing/sales activities in the morning, coaching calls in the afternoon. This way you can keep focused without interruptions–and you never have to wonder to what to do next!
Craft a pattern for how will you spend each day, based on what you need to do to hit your goals. This way you can keep focused without interruptions--and you never have to wonder to what to do next!
With that said, on to the example…
A Day in the Life of a Successful Business Coach
7:00 a.m. Review Your Vision Book and Affirmations.
This means look over your goals and objectives. It’s important to do this daily, to remind yourself why you do what you do, so you can stay motivated as you work to become a successful business coach.
7:30 a.m. Take Care of Administrative Details.
Catch up on random emails or anything that will distract you if you don’t deal with it now.
8:00 a.m. Phone Fun.
This is your chance to talk with leads, contacts, and prospects. I don’t advocate spending a lot of time cold-calling. A little bit here and there is okay, but cold-calling is less effective than other lead-generation strategies, and you’d be better served by outsourcing it or deploying marketing campaigns to bring prospects to you. So by “Phone Fun,” I mean talking to prospects and contacts you are nurturing.
11:30 a.m. Network Over Your Lunch Hour.
This could include attending networking lunches, or better yet, taking prospective referral sources or strategic partners out for a meal.
1:00-5:00 p.m. Coach Your Clients and Prospects.
This can include client coaching, or Complimentary Coaching Sessions with prospects who are far along in the sales process. You might be out visiting companies in your area or you might be meeting over the phone.
5:00 p.m. Review Your Affirmations and Vision Book Again.
Start and end your day with a review of your big WHY. Then leave your work until the next day. Time away from work is as important as productive time to keep you fresh and energized.
If you think you can get the hang of a daily schedule similar to what you see above, you just
might have what it takes to succeed in business coaching! Looking for more insight as you get into the business coaching business? Check out our FREE ebook, How to Become a Business Coach!
by Eric Dombach | Business Coaching Tools
In the long term, of the most impactful ways you’ll grow your list of business coaching prospects is through online marketing–a slow and steady process of producing high-value, high-engagement content over time.
But if you’re just getting started in the coaching business, or you need to boost a stale pipeline, don’t rule out old-fashioned, real-world approaches. They still work, and work well.
One of the most effective is to buy a list of “suspects” (a term I use for companies that meet my ideal customer profile, but with whom I have no relationship yet) from a reputable list broker and market to them.
Quick note: do NOT buy email lists. Sending emails cold is SPAM, and is not only poor etiquette, it can get you fined. The strategies I’m talking about here are analog, not digital.
If you do this right, you can reap significant rewards.
How to Create Business Coaching Prospects from a List of Suspects
First, target well.
You need to know your ideal customer profile like the back of your hand. In general, this should be businesses turning over at least $250,000 in annual revenue per year–otherwise, you’ll get a bunch of leads that are too cash poor to be worth your time. However, don’t make the mistake of excluding businesses between $250k and $750k in revenue. I’ve had numerous business coaching clients with revenue in that range that happily paid me $2,000 or more per month for years on end! In fact, one of my favorite clients was turning over just $475k per year when I signed him up for a business coaching program. Six years later, he’d more than doubled his revenue, and paid back all his start-up debt!
Also consider the niche you’re targeting and the location of your customers if you’re operating a local business coaching firm.
In general, I recommend:
- $250,000 to $20 million in annual revenue.
- At least five employees so you avoid “one man band” companies.
- The following roles: Owner, President, CEO, Partner, etc. so that you only get the decision-makers in the businesses you target.
- Include data from any of the major industry categories that you hope to target, such as retail, manufacturing, professional services, healthcare, information technology, construction, etc.
Your goal is to come up with a list of at least 5,000 to 10,000 records, so play with the criteria a bit to come up with this range of businesses. In the United States and Canada, my favorite list broker is Sales Genie.
Second, be consistent.
Your list should be the basis for all your marketing campaigns for years on end, especially telemarketing and targeted direct mail campaigns. When I started in the business, I worked the same database of about 10,000 records over and over for about four years. It got warmer and warmer, eventually yielding hundreds of business coaching prospects and clients.
When I started in the business, I worked the same database of about 10,000 records over and over for about four years. It got warmer and warmer, eventually yielding hundreds of business coaching prospects and clients.
A hint: you can convert a suspect to a digital prospect by sending cross-media offers. For example, send a postcard that leads to a landing page where suspects can download an ebook or tool in exchange for their email address. Now they’ve become digital business coaching prospects, which provides you more granular insight into their behavior and saves you marketing dollars!
Third, maintain your list.
Your database needs regular maintenance in order to perform well. Are you wasting money on postage and ineffective telemarketing calls? You are if you’re not keeping your database updated. It’s a time consuming but necessary task to maintain the accuracy of your marketing database. Remove addresses and phone numbers that are no longer active, and honor it when a suspect communicates to you that they are no longer interested. This is critical!
From Suspects to Business Coaching Prospects: A Case Study
But does it work?
You bet it does. For example, during a networking time before one of my seminars, I remember walking up to four guys and asking them why they came. Their response? “We’ve been getting your direct mail letters and telemarketing calls for over six months so we wanted to come check you out. What do you have planned for this morning?”
“Well,” I said, “I’m going to teach you how to build an amazingly profitable business and then get you started on one of my business coaching programs.”
“Okay,” they said nonchalantly.
Two hours later, they were signing a business coaching agreement at the back of the room! That relationship added at least $20,000 of value to my business (and probably more when you consider the value of their referrals) and it took me just six months to develop using “old-fashioned” marketing strategies like these. Cool!
Want more in-depth training like this on building your business coaching practice? Get a FREE 30-day trial of our comprehensive business coaching system and take a peek behind the scenes of everything we recommend to start and grow a profitable business coaching firm.
by Eric Dombach | Results
Hey Eric, just wanted to reach out thank you for your help! And also to give you this testimonial. I started working with you a few months ago after selling my first company for $2 Million USD. I knew I wanted to help others by leveraging my experience in building a tech start-up from scratch and selling for an awesome multiple. I had a bunch of ideas and frameworks, but really needed a system and a quality sales process and guidance to help me attract and convert the right kind of clients.
In October and November, I banked $5,500 and $8,500. So after just a few months with you, I’m already at a $100,000/year run rate! I banked $9,000 in January and I’ve now got $13,997 sold for February!
My mindset is now transitioning from “How can I cover my living expenses of $250K/year?” to “How do I cover living expenses and generate another $250K of profit?” That would mean I would need revenues of around $600,000 this year. I know you’ve been there and done that, so thanks again for your help. I’m excited to keep climbing!
You do an excellent job of completely answering my questions, strategically and tactically. Thank you for your help on this journey, it’s been instrumental. I couldn’t do it without you – I truly, truly appreciate it!
George Bandarian
by Eric Dombach | Business Coach Training
One of the best ways to build your business coaching practice is through strategic partnerships.
Essentially, strategic partners provide referrals in bulk. They’re non-competitive companies that cater to your approximate customer profile. The objective is to build a partnership where the company will recommend your services to their client base.
The benefits of developing strategic partnerships are obvious: you get the credibility of a referred endorsement by someone your prospects already know and trust. This makes them the most leveraged and inexpensive way to generate coaching clients.
It’s also the most time-consuming and sophisticated. It takes skill, patience, and finesse to make this strategy work.
The benefits of developing strategic partnerships are obvious: you get the credibility of a referred endorsement by someone your prospects already know and trust. This makes them the most leveraged and inexpensive way to generate coaching clients.
So how do you make it happen?
Four Steps to Successful Strategic Partnerships
STEP 1: Find a non-competitive business that shares your approximate client profile. Think printers, accountants, office furniture retailers, attorneys, and so on.
STEP 2: Work out an offer your strategic partner can make to their customer base that will make them look like Santa Claus. For example, create a special price, group coaching cohort, or specialized training just for customers of your strategic partner.
STEP 3: Show your potential strategic partner how this can be good for them, you, and both of your customers. Make an arrangement to cross-promote each other’s products and services. Offer Complimentary Coaching Sessions to your partner’s customers–and pay your partner a fee for everyone you complete. Better yet, pay an even larger fee when one converts; this way, you pay nothing until you actually close a deal! There are literally hundreds of possibilities.
STEP 4: Be prepared to show when and how they’ll get paid. Be specific about this. And be impeccable with your follow-through.
Strategic partnerships is the best-kept secret you will ever find for building your business coaching practice.
In my coaching business, I had such powerful strategic partners that accountants and bankers called my cell phone to tell me they had a client set up to come to their office already primed and ready.
I’d show up, conduct the Complimentary Coaching Session, and leave with a $3,000 to $5,000 check for the first month of services!
So take the time to build up relationships with well-positioned strategic partners. It can make the world of difference for your practice.
Want more in-depth tips and tricks like this? Download our FREE ebook, Secrets of a Business Coaching Rock Star.
