Coaches!
Here’s a coaching biz builder tip.
5 things you can do TODAY to get clients…fun + creative, too! It’s 5 mins–shorter than a romp in the hay and less $$ than a Starbucks latte! ENJOY!
I am a coach that works with life coaches, with wellness and health coaches, and with small business coaches to build their businesses because I’ve been doing this gig for about 10 years now, both inside of corporate America, and out.
I’ve learned a thing or two, and I want to share that with you because I think this world is a better place when we have more coaches in it.
Let’s get to it.
Today, I want to share with you five things that coaches can do to get clients right away. This is not like bullshit. This is real.
This is not like a get rich quick kind of thing, either. This is a slow build I teach because that’s how I did it, and that’s what I know to be successful from experience.
1. One of the things that you can do to get clients into your practice right away is to offer and run a sale.
When I was first getting started, I was not having a lot of traction in the beginning. I’d get a lot of people to say they thought they might be interested, but nobody was signing up. So, what I did was offer a sale for a period of time. I think it was maybe two weeks. I literally offered my coaching services, I think, at like a 65% discount and immediately had five sign-ups.
That’s a really good thing to do. Offer your coaching services at 50%, 60%, 80% off. Maybe you live with the number of spaces you have, but that’s something you could do.
2. Call everybody you know, call all your people and offer them a free sample session or a free coaching experience with you.
While they may not be a good candidate for you long-term as a candidate, at the end of that session you will ask them if they are interested in becoming a client, and if they’re not, who do they know who might be?
This is a good question to always be asking, but in giving them the coaching experience with you, you’re priming their mind for what it means to be coached. When they’re at their next cocktail party or doctor’s appointment, or soccer game talking to other parents, moms, whatever, and they see that someone is in distress and wants to talk with a coach, boom, they can say, “Hey, I know somebody who might be good for that,” and they will pass along your name.
But you have to tell them to do this. You have to train your peeps to do this. Part of the way you could do that is through this sample session.
3. Trade with an affiliate or a partner.
What I mean is trade services. Talk to your chiropractor, talk to your massage therapist, talk to, I don’t know, pick it. See if you can trade or barter some services, that’s a great way. Again, allowing people to experience what it means to be coaches because I still think there’s a large portion of the population out there that doesn’t know coaching, hasn’t experienced coaching. The latest surveys suggest that only about 15%, 16% of people even really know what coaching is, so we’re not even yet at that tipping point we need to be hitting where kind of, whoosh, everybody starts to learn about coaching. So, that’s a good way to get it out there.
4. A fourth good way coaches can get clients today is to run a contest for a free coaching session.
While you may not get a client to sign up right away, again, you’re building the momentum around your business. You’re building the energy. You’re building your email list so that people who may not be ready to sign up today for coaching will at least get a taste of what you offer and 6 months, 8 months, 10 months down the road they become a client because you’ve nurtured them along the way and shown them how you can help you, and you’ve given a lot of front. That’s key, key, key: give a lot upfront.
5. Sticky-note on your laptop.
Fifth and final way that you can get coaching clients in the door right away, go to Starbucks or your local coffee shop and stick a note on the backside of your laptop that says, “Hey, giving away free coaching sessions today,” and then literally do 15, 20 minute complimentary sessions. At the end of the session, ask them if they’d like to do some more coaching with you. Maybe a month-long stint, and offer it at a really inexpensive or less expensive price that you might normally charge, and see if you can get some traction with people that way. You’d be AH-mazed what you can do.
Of course, you want to get the coffee shop’s permission first. But, assuming that’s true, you’ll build some great momentum around your business.
Bonus Tip
Before I go, I have one bonus freebie for you. If you want to get more clients in the door right away, ask your current clients who are your biggest raving fans if they would be willing to refer someone to you. Tell them you are a referral-based business, that you rely on word-of-mouth advertising and marketing, and you could really, really use their support in this.
Don’t ever forget to be asking your current clients if they’ve had a great experience with you to please send other people your way.
That’s all I’ve got for today. Talk to you again soon! Go out there and get some new clients.
What tips would you add? What are your favorite fun methods to get new clients? Please share in the comment second below!
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