Laura:

Welcome to the Rating Coach's Minicast and YouTube Vlog. This is your go-to source for information that's going to transform your coaching passion into a profitable business. Every week you can join me and Laura Holliman as I dive deep into essential topics like branding, marketing, strategy, sales, pricing, all tailored to be able to help you generate consistent revenue in your business. Each week I do the ranting so your clients can do the raving. Rock out. Welcome to the Rating Coach's minicast and YouTube vlog. This is your go-to source for information that's going to transform your coaching passion into a profitable business. Every week, you can join me and Laura Holloman as I dive deep into essential topics like branding, marketing, strategy, sales, pricing, all tailored to be able to help you generate consistent revenue in your business. Each week I do the ranting so your clients can do the raving. Rock on. Solo podcast, how to get clients. Two part, I believe. One of the most common questions in all the coaching groups that I'm a part of is, I'm a new coach. It's usually an explanation, right? I'm a new coach. Here's my certification. How do I get clients? See, a lot of people want to become coaches, but a lot of people do not think about the necessity to become a now business owner and salesperson. But you are. So how do we get clients? Well, I think there's two things that need to be done, two ways to answer that question. And I think that this episode is gonna be a two-parter. So let me tell you what the two ways to answer that question are, because I think it's two different elements. There is, where do I look for potential clients? We can answer that question. And then over here there is, how do I get those potential clients to be interested at all in what I have to say? What do I say to get new clients? See, both are necessary to understand as part of this process. Let's answer the first question first. Where do I go to find potential clients? There are a whole lot of people out there that are going to tell you how to do it. You build a course, you build a lead generation funnel, you build your social media platform, give me all kinds of money and I'm gonna help you do those things. Maybe. But most of those things, Building a course requires marketing. And then you sell the course and you hope from the course you get coaching. So instead of getting you closer to coaching, it's now taking your clients into another step. It's taking you further away from the thing that you want, which is clients. Lead generators, not bad. Not when they're aligned with who you are. But what do you want as a new coach right now? Clients. So spending your time building a lead generator, and then testing the lead generator, and seeing if anybody's interested, and finding a place to host it, and finding a way to automatically send it, because you don't want to send it yourself, which by the way, you have all the time in your hands. You're like, why not just send it yourself? But that's another question. That's somebody else trying to sell you the automated CRM system. What do you need again? Do you need a lead generator? No, you need clients. So the best place to find clients is to talk to people. The best place, I think, is to go directly to your network. I was surprised to find that when I started coaching, when I reached out to my cold network and I said, hey, I'm looking to practice, that I had two or three people in my very close circle that said, absolutely, you can practice with me. I'd love that. Now they weren't so close that it wasn't okay. So reach out to your network of contacts. Now, does that feel a little intimidating sometimes? Sure. You have to tell your circle that you're doing something new. I don't understand why we do this, we hide what we're doing. I don't understand it. And I think it's because we have a glitch in the brain that tells us it's not a real business yet. We're kind of testing it out on other people, and then maybe when we're successful, we'll tell our close circle. You have a business. If you cleaned homes, would you reach out to your circle and say, hey, I clean homes now. If you guys know anybody that needs their home cleaned or business cleaned, I sure would appreciate a referral. Absolutely. Why don't you think of this as the same thing? if you're one of those coaches that holds back from telling their former coworkers, their friends, the people that they associate with, the people in the clubs or the activities that you participate in, if you're not telling them, hey, I'm a coach now, I'm starting a new business, here's what I do, I sure would appreciate referrals, there might be something that you need to work out. And I think it probably has to do with you don't know what you uniquely do yet. which is this other part over here, how to explain and talk to somebody and attract somebody into your coaching by explaining what you do. But let's go back, right? Let's go back. Point number one, where do we find the people? Your close circle is the first place. Reach out, reach out with a phone call, with a text, with a personal email, not a big email blast, not a social media blast, because nobody really pays attention to those things anymore. Personal reach out. Next, where can you network? Where do your ideal clients hang out? A lot of my ideal clients are everywhere because I can work with anybody. I'm a coach. No friend, you are wrong. They are not anywhere. You are a coach for a very specific type of person because of your endotype formula and the gifts and skills that you have. And because of your life story and experience and the life that you've lived, that combines to make a beautiful connection for who you're ideally suited to working with. If you don't know that, then of course you don't know where to go. Do you go to the golf club? Do you go to the mommy and me group? There's gonna be really different people at those two places. But you have to know what you uniquely do before you can really understand where to find your ideal clients. See, that's why we go back over here to the number two side and why it's so connected. Networking is a huge next step. And then while networking, it is important to have that great introduction that also includes an offer, a stepping into some work with me or a client program. Again, back over to number two. Now, some things that I think might be a giant waste of your time if you're struggling to get clients right now are going on social media and posting all about your coaching all the time. Unless you already have a huge social media following, like you've been social media savvy and an influencer and you've sold other things through social media, there's a pretty big learning curve. If you're just regular Sally, who's not ever used social media to sell stuff, there can be a learning curve there. So it's not the most direct path to clients. Starting a newsletter, that feels delightful because it's busy work and it distracts you from having to have the awkward conversations at networking events. No friend, you need to go talk to people. Thank you very much. This is a work of bravery. You are asking your clients to embark on a brave coaching journey. And in order for you to be able to make that invitation, you too need to embrace your bravery. Now, for those of you who are like, Laura, I know who I work with and I know what I do. And I've done the networking and I'm looking for the next step. The next step I've seen work so well is collaboration. So I know a coach who works with clients who are in their forties, menopausal. She's helping them learn how to advocate for themselves as they approach menopause and they're working with their doctors and find great doctors. And she's accumulating lists of doctors that take menopause seriously. She's helping them reset that mindset for the second part of their life. She's really good at what she does. She's been on the podcast, look up Erin, Erin's episode, blanking on her last name right now, but we'll drop it into the show notes. Erin recently started doing some collaborations with some amazing like many spas and more traditional, but higher end, maybe pay out of pocket medical experiences. because her clients are there. They are the clients who are in their forties and fifties, who are dealing with age, dealing with menopause, who have some income to be able to spend on things. And Erin has been directly marketing to them as, I would like to form a collaborative relationship. And one of the first things that she and I talked about was, what do you bring to the party? What do you bring to the party that makes them, she had a great answer. Great, as long as you know, because right, a collaboration isn't, please give me clients. A collaboration is, here's what I do for you, here's what you can do for me. Like, I think we could together help these people better than either of us could do on our own. Awesome. So let's talk next time. For those of you who are like, okay, I kind of understand number one and you know where you're at in number one, but you're right. I don't have a great answer to what I do. You're right. I don't have a great answer. Now I'll tell you right now saying, Oh, I'm a coach. That's not a great answer. I love that you're a coach. I think coaches change the world. It's not a great answer to what you do. Tune in next week for part two, where we talk about the second thing you need to be able to find clients, which is a great way of speaking to what you uniquely do.