by Eric Dombach | Business Coach Marketing
Here are our top digital marketing tips for business coaches, both new and aspiring.
After all, the internet is a powerful tool for ongoing, perpetual lead-generation–and needs to be included in your marketing mix.
But BEWARE: digital marketing is a complex game. If you go in unprepared, it can suck up weeks of your time and produce little in the way of substantial revenue and lead flow.
Don’t get caught up in “get rich online” schemes. Instead, follow these simple digital marketing tips to help you generate business coaching leads online.
What You Need to Know to Be an Effective Digital Marketer
1. Focus on producing a consistent stream of high-value content. They say content is king, and that’s as true as ever. The creation of high-value, high-impact content should be the cornerstone of your digital marketing efforts. You can do this through podcasts or videos–though if you’re just getting started, your best bet is to blog regularly. Blogging does wonders for your search engine results and gives you a steady stream of content you can push out to your followers through social media and email marketing.
And here’s a hint: being a consistent blogger is more important than being a prolific blogger. Many coaches feel overwhelmed at the idea of cranking out an article every day. But that’s not necessary. On the blog here, we publish a new post about once per week. We find that’s a good pace for our readership, and our consistency helps our followers know what to expect from us. Best of all, we attract more and more search engine traffic as we add to our stable of high-value, relevant posts on topics that business coaches are searching for. I’ve long said that the secret to success is to do the RIGHT THINGS in SMALL AMOUNTS over a LONG PERIOD OF TIME. That as true for content development as anything else.
For help finding the right topics and keywords for you, join my business coaching group on LinkedIn where you can mingle with the coaches in our network, and even get a hold of content they’ve created so you’re not starting from scratch. To join, find my LinkedIn page here and scroll to the bottom where you’ll find the link to my group called “The Coaches’ Coach: Business Coaching for Business Coaches.” (If we’re not already LinkedIn contacts, feel free to add me.)
2. Create gated content. Develop at least one piece of content that visitors can access in exchange for their name and email address. This is called “gated content.” Typically speaking, gated content is more useful, specific, or extensive than your free offerings. It can be an ebook, report, or video training series. Use blog posts, emails blasts, direct mail, local networking / business card exchanges, and social media to drive to the squeeze page where contacts enter their information. (For an example of how I’m using this tactic, see here.)
3. Sign up for TimeTrade. This is an incredible (yet cheap!) online service that allows clients and prospects to schedule appointments with you–without the need for a one-on-one conversation! You simply list the times you’re available in the online app and include the link to your calendar in all your marketing material. TimeTrade syncs with your Google Calendar or Outlook automatically. As your prospects and clients consume your content and decide that they want an appointment with you, they will literally book themselves in! I can tell you from personal experience how cool it is to open your email in the morning and see two or three one-on-one sales opportunities waiting for you…and you didn’t have to lift a finger!
4. Leverage email marketing. Email marketing is an amazing way to keep in touch with your leads and clients, so get an email marketing solution with auto-responder capabilities such as MailChimp (super cheap, but limited feature set) or Infusionsoft (a bit more expensive, but VERY feature-rich). Create an autoresponder email sequence (“drip marketing” email messages that go out based on a pre-determined schedule) and enroll your new leads into the sequence after they opt in for gated content. About once per month, send an email digest of your most popular blog articles to your list. Run special promotions reminding contacts to go to your TimeTrade link and schedule a Complimentary Coaching Session.
5. Get social. There are two ways to use social media: paid and organic. Paid ads can be specifically targeted to your ideal customer. On Facebook, you can target by age, location, profession, and interests. On LinkedIn, you can target by job title, company size, and industry. Use ads to drive leads to your squeeze pages, where visitors opt-in for gated content and join your mailing list.
Use organic posts to continue the conversation with your existing followers. Share interesting blog posts, videos, and infographics. It’s okay to self-promote by linking to your own blog posts and squeeze pages, but be sure to curate high-value content from other sources as well. Comment on others’ posts and respond to comments on your page.
These five digital marketing tips for business coaches should form the basis of your online marketing efforts. For more detailed campaigns and training, request a FREE 30-day trial of our comprehensive business coaching system!
by Eric Dombach | How to Become a Business Coach
In addition to my career working with folks who are interested in becoming a business coach, I’ve spent several years as a volunteer soccer coach. A couple of years ago, I served as an assistant coach to the high school soccer team that my oldest son is a member of–a great way to invest in that relationship.
It was a young team. More than half of them were new to high school soccer and it showed in their junior-high level mistakes: too much dribbling, not enough passing; too much showmanship, not enough sportsmanship.
So as a coaching team, we emphasized how important it was to just TRY to do the right things. For example, we encouraged them to…
- Attempt a “drop pass”–a pass backward to a midfielder or even backfielder–instead of dribbling through a congested clump of defenders…
- Try to “switch the field” by passing laterally to the other side of the field instead of driving forward into heavy traffic.
These are strategic plays that require a more sophisticated understanding of the game…and when they do them, it shows that they’re learning how to think on a higher level.
At this point in their development, even if they totally screw up a drop pass or field switch, we’re totally pleased with the attempt! With more practice and experience, they’ll start making more and more of those plays.
Your process of becoming a business coach works the same way.
Whenever I begin working with a new-ish business coach, the very first thing we work on are the MENTAL SHIFTS necessary to win as a business coach. For example…
- Talking on the phone to prospects each day to book Complimentary Coaching Sessions.
- Meeting face-to-face (or virtually) for several of those Complimentary Coaching Sessions each week.
Business coaches around the world are starving for lack of these two fundamentals!
I get jacked, happy, geeked, when I get on the phone with a business coach client and she reports that she made 50 dials to prospects in the past week–the most she’s EVER made. I don’t care about the results in the beginning. I’m just happy that she was on the phone using the script we’ve tested and proven over years of refinement! (It’s called our “Silver Bullet” script and you can find the cheat sheet here.)
I celebrate with the business coach client when he reports that he had her first real Complimentary Coaching Session in weeks. I don’t care if his conversion rate is rock-bottom LOW for the first few attempts. We’ll fix that fast! I just need him out there meeting with people, making the attempts.
In soccer AND in business coaching, the key is to get your charges out there and developing the skills and instincts it takes to win. Sure, they’ll miss the first few passes at the get-go, but who cares? The results will come over time as they start focusing on the right things!
For more great tips on becoming a business coach, download my FREE ebook, How to Become a Business Coach. You’ll learn a powerful step-by-step process for building a new career as a coach.
by Eric Dombach | Business Coach Training
If you’re in the start-up phase of your coaching practice and are still waiting to land your first business coaching client, this post is for you.
Remember a couple of weeks ago when I said that one of the smart things I did before starting my business was to buy and read a shelfload of books on starting and running a business? It really helped me get going fast and without making some obvious mistakes.
With hindsight, probably the best piece of advice I read back then was in a short little book that was basically a day-by-day guide to starting your business (sadly, the name of the book escapes me right now, but it’s back home on my bookshelf).
The book had a whole series of questions you had to answer, one per day, until your business was ready to launch. And pretty much the first question they asked was “where is your first customer going to come from?”
Then the next week, they asked the same question: “Do you know where your first customer is going to come from yet?”
And again the week after. Every week they repeated the same question.
Finally, I got it.
I’ve talked to a lot of entrepreneurs over the years who are in the early stages of setting up their businesses.
The ones who succeed are always able to answer that simple, pragmatic question very clearly.
The ones who struggle tend to spend their time dreaming about how they’re going to expand in year three, what sort of staff they need, what their big vision is. But they overlook the very simple, challenging, yet crucial question: where is your first customer going to come from?
And so I ask you, start-up business coach:
Where is your first business coaching client going to come from?
If you don’t know, I suggest you check out Eric’s ebook, Secrets of a Business Coaching Rock Star. It’s jam-packed with the lead generation and sales skills you’ll need to master to turn your coaching practice dream into a living, breathing reality.
And if you’re not completely obsessed with that question, I strongly suggest you stop everything you’re doing and figure it out RIGHT NOW.
It’ll make all the difference in the world between a coaching career that struggles and a coaching career that succeeds.
Ian Brodie helps consultants, coaches, and other professionals to attract and win more clients. He’s the author of the #1 Amazon bestseller Email Persuasion and has been named as one of the Top 50 Global Thought Leaders in Marketing and Sales and one of the “resources of the decade” for professional services marketing. You can get more of his in-depth tips on starting and growing your business at www.ianbrodie.com
by Eric Dombach | Business Coach Training
Have you ever had a month with a 100% conversion rate on your business coaching sales meetings?
I have. And some of my business coach students have, too.
That’s because they know my 17-step process for business coaching sales meetings — what I call my 100% Sales Process–so named because those are literally the kinds of results it produces.
Case in point: not too long ago, one of my UK-based coaches brought on three new clients for a total of £2100 in new, recurring monthly revenue (at today’s exchange rate, that’s about $2785 USD). To get them on-board, he did three Complimentary Coaching Sessions (CCS’s).
Three CCS’s, three new clients.
That’s 100%. You gotta love it!
Wondering how you, too, can achieve a sick-awesome conversion rate in your business coaching sales meetings?
Then remember: like anything in business, success in sales comes from developing and refining a system.
When I first started out as a business coaching franchisee in 2001, no one had developed a truly systematic approach for conducting business coaching sales meetings with prospects. We all had to figure it out for ourselves.
I began calling my business coaching sales meetings “Complimentary Coaching Sessions” back in 2003, because I discovered the more attractive label generated better response. That’s because it communicates that real value is being delivered for FREE to the business owner. You must begin the relationship by adding value; only then can you expect the business owner to want to you as a coach.
Lots of sales gurus have developed sales processes that can be adapted, modified, and customized to bring some structure and discipline to your CCS’s. I know businesses coaches who use various systems as a conceptual architecture for their sales meetings. Maybe you’ve heard of some of them:
- Spin Selling by Neil Rackham — a 4-stage process
- Action Selling by Duane Sparks (no relation to ActionCoach) — a 9-stage process
- Sell it Today, Sell it Now by Tom Hopkins — a 20-stage sales process
All of the sales processes are good and I know business coaches who have achieved great success in selling business coaching by using and adapting one or more of these systems to their own sales process.
In my business, as I studied and tested various processes, I ended up developing a 17-stage sales process that derives from the Hopkins’ 20-stage system. I tested and refined this process over (literally) several hundred of my own CCS’s. And now, I’ve been teaching it to my students for years with resounding success.
Here are my 17 steps of the “100% Sales Process” for conducting Complimentary Coaching Sessions that close:
- PACK well — bring your sales binder and audio recorder so you can evaluate yourself later
- PREPARE yourself — do your affirmations in the car on the way and get emotionally charged up
- PROPRIETY in everything — look, smell, and dress the part of a professional; how’s your breath?
- PREMISE tour — build rapport by complimenting everything you can as they show you around
- PERSONALITY, please — adapt your personality style to their observable DISC style
- PURPOSE statement — after the tour, sit down and explain exactly what’s going to happen
- PACT removal — preempt the “I want to think about it” or “gotta talk about it with my partner”
- PROFILE review — establish your credibility by reviewing your hot bio with the client
- PRICE preview — briefly introduce your services and prices to avoid sticker shock at the end
- POSITION your value — explain why you’re worth the money; share client testimonials
- PROBLEM and PAIN exploration — explore their most obvious issues around Time, Team, and Money
- PRESENT the Silver Bullets — explain at least three of the Silver Bullets as solutions to the issues
- PROPOSE coaching — get agreement that coaching with you will solve their problems and pain
- PROGRAM agreement — walk them through your agreement and position the relationship
- PRODUCT choice — let them choose which of your coaching programs they want to invest in
- PROFIT EQUATION demo — use this process to demonstrate the ROI they’ll get through coaching
- PRONTO — get them started on their first assignments and readings right away
Having trained and coached more than 1500 coaches over the last 15 years, I can tell you that the most critical steps above — and yet the most neglected — are #6 (Purpose Statement) and #16 (Profit Equation). Skip either of these and you’re most certainly leaving tens of thousands of dollars on the table.
For detailed training on this system, get a FREE 30-day trial inside the Coaches’ Coach business portal and make your first 100% conversion month a reality!
by Eric Dombach | Business Coach Training
Today I have an IMPORTANT, even urgent message, especially for successful, veteran business coaches. (If you’re only just learning how to become a business coach, don’t worry. This business coach training will be helpful for you a couple years from now…)
Not long ago, I had a coaching call with a coach-client of mine. He’s been coaching a company for several months now–with incredible results. In fact, he has one client who has almost doubled their profits in that time because of his excellent coaching.
And just recently, the client approached him with a tempting offer that this coach is seriously considering: a full-time position with the company.
It seems attractive. After all, they’re offering more money, stock options, a chance to buy into their company. Here are all the reasons why he’s thinking of saying yes…
1) More Money. Instead of $2,500 per month for coaching, they’re offering him $12,500 per month! They’ll even let him keep his coaching practice “on the side!”
2) Stability of Income. No matter what anyone says, client acquisition has always been–and always will be–the hardest part of the coaching business. There’s a part of this coach that says, “At last, I can have a stable income and do what I love to do best–coach a great company from a real position of control on the inside!”
3) A Bigger Play and Ownership. They’re stroking his ego. “This is your chance to be the CEO, the Director,” they say. “Time to get off the sidelines as a business coach and get back into a big game where you can actually PLAY!”
But remember: below every deal like this lurks an unexpected underbelly.
Beware the Siren
Do you remember the story of the Siren from Greek mythology? In Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus was the captain of a ship navigating the raging waters. As he passed between two outcroppings of rocks, he heard a song — a beautiful, seductive, almost irresistible song — from two ethereal creatures called Sirens. In their song, they promised Odysseus all the knowledge of the earth and gods.
Odysseus was tempted.
But surrounding the Sirens were the decaying bodies of sailors who had been likewise tempted. The Siren-song was so compelling, so magnetic, that those enchanted by it became powerless to resist the next verse — then the next, then the next…until they starved to death because they never found the strength to pull away.
So Odysseus sailed on.
It’s a fascinating, even gruesome, story — but one that holds a profound lesson for business coaches who find themselves in a situation similar to my client’s. After all, every successful business coach will be faced with their own Siren eventually.
But beware!
If you give in and go to work for your clients…
1) You Will Destroy Your Effective Billable Rate. If you’re using a great system to build your business, your Effective Billable Rate (EBR) is between $250 and $750 per hour, and you’re billing out at least 15 hours per week. That’s $180,000 on the low side–and better than just about any professional service provider you will ever meet. Take the job, and your EBR will plummet to $50-$100 per hour in most cases and a low six-figure income after being taxed as an employee.
2) Your Will Lose Your Freedom. Mark my words. Your relationship will fundamentally change as soon as you change from “coach” to “employee” or even to “consultant” or “president.” Instead of being the coach who holds the client accountable to produce, YOU are now accountable to produce, or else. The roles have been reversed!
3) Your Core Professional Business Coaching Practice Will Suffer Irreparable Harm. You will be drawn in slowly, like the sailors who thought they would stay for just the next verse of the Sirens’ song. But soon, all the promises of respecting your boundaries and limiting your hours will be abandoned and forgotten. As soon as the ink dries and the cash starts flowing your way, you are the servant of the business and no longer the coach. And the longer you’re diverted from your core business, the harder it will be to rebuild it, should the relationship disappoint or sour.
4) Will They Really Keep Their Promises? What about the old adage, “If it sounds too good to be true it probably is?” I’ve learned from my own hard experience that those who promise the world are usually either desperate, deluded, or both. Do you have their promises in writing? Have they keep their promises with others? Are you sure?
Beware the siren! Beware the seduction!
As Robert Kiyosaki explains, money from the S or B (business owner) quadrants is so much better than the same money — or even more money — from the E (employee) quadrant. Make no mistake: it will cost you! Consider the cost before you pay it.
Is being an independent business coach worth the challenge and struggle? You bet! What else can you do vocationally to ply your gifts as a business leader, trainer, tactician, and strategist that allows you, as a relative newcomer, to earn $250k plus per year? And all this as you work from a home office, avoid a morning commute or constant travel, and maintain a 40-hour work week?
Over the past decade, I have had the privilege of knowing many of the world’s finest coaches, and many of them (myself included!) have made this painful error at least once.
So beware the Siren! Tell your crew to tie you to the mast so you can hear their song if you must.
But whatever you do, sail on. Sail on!
If you’re tempted by the offer of full-time employment from your clients, it could be you just haven’t had the business coach training to help you get to a place of consistent, reliable income. Check out my free ebook, Secrets of a Business Coaching Rock Star, to help you start building the lifestyle you deserve.
