How can I grow my coaching business?

Coaching businesses are often created by people with a passion and cause. They didn't create the business to spend most of their time doing sales outreach and marketing activities.

Like most businesses which share knowledge and expertise, it is a passion and a mission for the business owner.

That said, you can't succeed without getting clients and making money.

In this article I'm going to share 5 keys to growing your coaching business.

1. Shift your Mindset On Growing Your Business
2. Have A Clear And Valuable Offer For The Market
3. Give Massive Value Through Media
4. Eliminate Sales Friction (and do less selling)

1) Shift Your Mindset On Growing Your Business

There are a million different voices out there telling you how you should be growing your business. There is so much conflicting advice. Pre-Internet, you had limited choices and limited options. Today, you have many. So, how do you know what works for you?

Well, let's make this really simple. 

If you are selling your expertise as a coach or consultant, you are the product. That means you have to get out there and shift your thought process. You are a media personality. In this social media, content-driven age - you are the talent. You are the star of the show. 

Today, you aren't a coach or consultant, you are a media personality, who also sells coaching or consulting. You need to think that way. You lead a media business, of which you are the start of the show. If you think about it, this means, your mission is to help the world through your coaching.

You are a media personality who also helps people through coaching. 

When I talk about MAVERRIK, we talk internally about being a media company that happens to sell training, coaching and consulting. We need to think that way as it is the long-term way to achieve success in your business.

Forget the term marketing, just think, how will I use media to add value to the world.

2 Have A Clear and Valuable Offer for the Market

In order to grow your coaching business, you need paying clients. The vast majority of your clients will pay you money to solve a problem that is hurting them in some way, holding them back from something better and they have struggled to do it themselves.

In order for you to make your offer clear and valuable you need to help people solve a specific problem and/or achieve a specific result.

Offers with unclear outcomes are difficult to sell, because they don't speak to people who feel the pain of needing to achieve some form of change. 

The best offers speak to

• Urgent Pain
• Clear Result
• Definitive Time-frame

The offer you create using the details above essentially create what is known as a Big Promise - a statement of what your coaching offer delivers. Don't fall into the trap of trying to sell coaching sessions, as this doesn't really show the true value of your service. People by solutions to problems, not features (e.g 10 x 1:1 sessions).

In order to consistently sell your coaching or consulting, you'll need to really focus on those pains and outcomes to align them with your audience.

You can't sell a £5,000 coaching programme to someone with no pain or no goal in mind. So, you have to really align your price and promise.

3. Give Massive Value Through Media

Here comes on of the biggest keys, which is counter-intuitive. You need to deliver massive value through media. That includes social media and any other channels you use. You also need to do it consistently. Typically it takes 11-15 touchpoints for someone to understand you, see your value and see a need for your services. There is no once-and-done. Consistently delivering value, is important.

You can of course recycle this value so you aren't constantly making new things, but you need to do this. As people drift into your world and discover your value it will stick with those who resonate and you can grow a loyal following. 

Now, here is the counter-intuitive part...

Many coaches get worried about delivering too much value. This can seriously cripple your success.

If you look at people like Tony Robbins, who has a global personal development business, you can see why worrying about delivering too much value is a mistake.

Tony, has a raft of books explaining and teaching his methods. You can buy the books online and if you spent enough time on YouTube you can probably get all his wisdom for free.

So, given there is so much value out there, why do people still spend £000s buying his programmes and attending his events? Why do some pay £00000s to be mentored by him?

Because the secret isn't your knowledge, the secret is the result.

This is where we unpack what I call the DIYers, TRYers and BUYers.

There are three types of people, people who want to DIY it, these people are just looking for information, they follow, engage and interact, but ultimately, they just want information to figure it out for themselves. You can't change this, it's just the way it is. These people are a great asset in building your profile and visibility. They are fans, but DIY fans. The DIYers also attract other types of buyers. DIYers bring a different type of value to your business, they bring you eyeballs and attention.

TRYers present themselves as DIYers but have consistently struggled to implement. These people want to try things for themselves, but ultimately, they fail. They buy programmes when they struggle to DIY it. These people need your help. They'll take part in free challenges, download lead magnets and it's your job to be there for them when they need your help because that's when they decide you are the best person to help them, because your DIY content was soo valuable, they trust you and buy your programmes or coaching services.

Finally, we come to BUYers, this is a much smaller group, these people are distant from you, they may engage but are distant. These people seem to come from nowhere and drop money to work with you. I've had many of these people who I didn't know existed until they made an enquiry. 

BUYers are often consumers of your value at a distance. They are watching and gaining value and then make the leap that they want to work with you.

Eliminate Sales Friction (and do less selling)

No coach wants to be a sales person. What they really want is as little selling as possible. That isn't a pipedream, but it does require a different strategy.

At the beginning of this article, I shared about how you need to think differently about your business, this will take it one step further. You don't need to aggressively sales pitch people, if you adopt a different strategy.

I teach many coaches to use the SEE TASTE BUY strategy which is incredibly simple and requires very little selling. 

SEE is all about building your crowd and building awareness, relatability and belief in you, your value and your offer. Consistent value, consistent content and consistently being yourself.

TASTE this is one of the most important elements, especially for coaches, they need to taste your value. Your future clients need to have an experience of what it is like working with you, in other words, they need a deeper encounter with you than just consuming your videos and posts on social media. 

This TASTE phase can be a webinar, live calls, free session, any of those things will help you to gain a deeper interaction and make the sales process much simpler.

The final stage is BUY, this actually is something you thread into all your activity. The more people are aware of your offer, the easier it will by for people to jump in and buy it. Actively sharing stories and promotions (not too often) helps people understand what you want them to buy, even at a low level, so when you tell people about it in the TASTE phase they already know a bit about it.

One way I instigate this is to share about my offer in a post on social media, then share about it through stories in my webinars and live calls. Then when I invite people join through my email list, they already know quite a bit about it. Most of the time, my job to follow up is just an admin task then.

The SEE TASTE BUY strategy reduces friction and eliminates all cold pitching and trying to get sales calls with strangers. Instead it means you have a warm crowd who are loving your value... it's way easier to grow your coaching business if you are getting clients from a crowd who love your value.

These key points in this article will free you from the pressure to be a sales and marketing pro and allow you to be you. You can share you value, create taste experiences and share about your offer in a relaxed and relational way.

Many want this, want to grow their coaching business this way, but never do it. They buy course after course trying to find the missing piece of the puzzle. But the missing piece of the puzzle is this, people buy into you... the more you put yourself out there (with a clear offer) the easier it gets.

Instead of chasing down different tactics and strategies, just follow this and watch what happens. I've been doing this for nearly ten years and each year my business grows. In year one it felt very scary, but in year two we took off. As I've hired all my team I've encourage them to do the same... guess what? Year on year we grow.

Growing your coaching business is something that will require consistent effort (if you haven't already noticed). When you shift your mindset you can fulfil your passion and cause without having to aggressively sell and promote yourself, by simply being that media personality from day one and building your crowd who values your value. It may feel frustrating in the early days, but it has a massive pay off if you can stick with it for 6-12 months.

That's around about the time when people start messaging you asking for your programmes.

Go make it happen!