Discover Your Coaching Niche

Archive for May, 2007

This posting continues our article on the Seven Myths about Getting Coaching Clients.  Here we have myths six and seven. 

6. Invest in Brochures

Myth six is because my prospects ask for brochures, that’s what I’ll supply.

Brochure requests are used as a delaying tactic by people who cannot make their minds up.  Quality brochures are expensive to produce, take time to get right, and are most often filed in a circular filing system by your prospect. 

And don’t even think of producing them on your home PC printer using clip-art.  What message would you be sending out? 

Rather than waste your time and money, politely enquire of your prospect what information that they would like that would normally be in a brochure.  Then answer that question on the spot.

7. Join a Coaching Group

Myth seven is “If I join an online coaching group, I’ll get loads of clients”.

Pretend you’re an ice-cream salesman.  Are you more likely to get people to buy your ice-cream by hanging around other ice-cream salesmen, or in areas where there are children playing? 

Now I’m not saying don’t join online and offline coaching groups.  They can be very useful for ongoing coaching development, but just realise you won’t get any coaching business from them!

The Seven Myths

These myths are widely held by coaches.  You will hear them being touted time and again.  This results in many coaches being far less successful in their practices than they should be.

And don’t take my word for it that they are myths – ask other experienced coaches who have tried and failed with these tactics. 

So now you’re aware of the myths, what can you do about them?

Action Questions

1. Ask yourself how many of these myths you currently believe.  Is it just one, or several? 

2. How many of these are you actually putting in place right now?  Are they working?

3. Are you aware, yet, what else you could be doing, that would be more effective?

4. Where could you find out more effective marketing tactics for coaches?

5. What actions could you take this week to make your marketing serve you?

6. What is the very first step you can take right now to improve your marketing and get more clients?

Alun Richards helps coaches find and reach their coaching niche.  Discover yours with Alun’s free mini-course, “Discover Your Coaching Niche”, available from http://www.brandingyou.org/ecoursesales.html

© Copyright Alun Richards 2007. All Rights Reserved.  You may freely distribute this article providing you do so in its entirety; ensuring the copyright and contact details above are included

This is the second part of an article on the myths about getting clients.

In the last posting, we outlined coaching marketing myths one to three.  In this posting we cover myths four and five.

4. You Can Coach Anyone

Myth four is “When you’re a coach, you’ll appeal to anyone who wants coaching”.

No you won’t!  The coaching market has matured in the last few years.  Prospective clients are no longer asking for any old coach, they’re asking for a specialist coach to help them accomplish a specific thing, or overcome a specific problem.  Hence the proliferation of marketing coaches, weight-loss coaches, career coaches and the like. 

You must focus your marketing promotion on a target market that want what you can specifically and uniquely deliver.  This implies knowing precisely what you can deliver, and which sector of the market values it.

5. Put up a Website

Myth five is “If I put up a website I’ll get loads of clients”.

Try it and see.  A coaching website on its own, with no traffic will do nothing for you.  A website is but one component of an overall online and offline marketing strategy. 

Does this mean you shouldn’t have a website?  Not necessarily, but on its own the effect will be limited.  For it to work for you there needs to be a compelling reason for your target market to visit your website.  Putting up a few articles on the difference between coaching, counselling and consulting and having some testimonials is no longer enough.  Sorry!

Myths 6-7 will follow in the next postings.

There are a number of widespread and damaging myths circulating about getting coaching clients.  These have been repeated so many times that new coaches believe they must be true. 

In truth, there are many effective ways for you as a coach to get clients.  But the first step is understanding what doesn’t work and why. If you were only to avoid sabotaging yourself by not adopting these myths, you would already be ahead of many, many coaches.  So read on, and discover the top seven myths about getting coaching clients.

1. They’ll Find You

Myth one is that if you’re a good coach, clients will find you.

This is the “If you build it, they will come” idea – the one memorably proposed by Kevin Costner’s character in the film Field of Dreams.  It’s rubbish. 

If prospects don’t know about you, they cannot possibly get in touch to ask you to coach them.  You’re as likely to get clients “just because you’re good” as you are to find a black cat in a coal-hole at midnight.  On a moon-less night and with a blindfold on.

2. Free Taster Sessions

Myth two is widespread, and it is if you give away free coaching sessions, those prospects will convert to clients.

Ask experienced coaches who have used this strategy how effective it is.  The fact is people take the free session, and you don’t see them again.  That’s if they turn up in the first place.

This is a case of the prospect valuing your service at the price they paid – zero.  Value yourself – don’t give away your services!

3. Advertise

Myth three – if you advertise you’ll get business.

No you won’t.  The only sure thing about advertising is that it will cost you money.  Professional services like coaching are not really amenable to advertising.  Coaching is not like plumbing, where a Yellow Pages advert is a good investment.  Coaching is not an “emergency buy”.
 
Similarly for radio, (and heaven forbid) TV advertising, billboards and notices in newsagents.  These media are very unlikely to target the kind of market you’re after.  The only time advertising will work for you is when it’s highly targeted on a narrow niche.

Myths 4-7 will follow in subsequent postings.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know that I tend to publish versions of the articles here on ezinearticles.com.  Well, ezinearticles have just given me Platinum status based on the quality of the articles that I’ve submitted.

If you click on the graphic above, you’ll be taken to the list of all my free articles on marketing for coaches held at ezinearticles.com. 

Just like the articles here, you are welcome to read, download and repost my articles on your website, as long as they are posted in full, including my copyright and full link information.

My latest article is posted here: article on researching your market.

Paul Colligan is currently running the Podcast Secrets teleclass series with Alex Mandossian, and I’m learning to podcast!  I am using this material to create a podcast for coaches who are attempting to discover and utilise their marketing niche – you’ll hear more about this soon.

Paul is also running a beta test for a podcast-catching black box that manages your downloads automatically as well as charging your mp3 player.

I’d like to be part of the black box beta test as I’d like to experiment with how my podcasts can be managed via this technology, and how the coaches who read this blog can use it effectively.  I’d like to see how the whole chain from podcast creation to delivery and consumption is experienced.

And you’ll get to hear about my experiences, and how you can benefit from it, too.

More details on the black box here on Paul’s blog.

This is the third and final part of the Research Your Market article.

8. Coverage in the Press

What press coverage does your market niche get? 

Investigate the specialist press relating to your niche.  What are the online and offline newsletters and magazines relating to your niche?  What topics are they featuring?  What problems are they addressing?

9. Your own Experience

It’s likely that you’ve had personal experience of your market niche, and may have been a past (or even current) member of that niche. 

So your experience is valuable.  List the problems you’ve had as a member of the group you’re targeting.  What have been your frustrations, blockers – where have you not been able to move forward? 

List them all out and analyse them.

10. Your Clients

You may have already had clients who are members of your target market.  Cast your mind back to the problems they raised.  Then list all those problems and look for patterns.  Which are the most common problems?  What are the nature of their problems?

Putting it all together

If you’ve spent some time on a number of the above suggestions, you should now have a clear view of the problems your target market is experiencing. 

So now what do you do? 

Well, that’s a topic for next time…

Summary

This article outlines the strategies you can use today to research your target market.  Whether you choose online or offline research, I’ve given you ten free or nearly free ways to get the results you desire.

So why not plan which suggestions you’ll use to get tangible results in the next 30 days?
 
Alun Richards helps coaches find and reach their coaching niche. Discover yours with the free mini-course, “Discover Your Coaching Niche”, available from http://www.brandingyou.org/ecoursesales.html

© Copyright Alun Richards 2007 All Rights Reserved
You may repost this article as long as it’s used in its entirity, including the author contact details and copyright information. 

 

This is the second part of the Research Your Market article, where I discuss 10 quick and easy ways to research your target market.

4. Do a Google Search

Do a simple Google search – www.google.com – and see how many hits there are for your chosen topic.

Then brainstorm the main keywords associated with your niche and your target market.  Search on these keywords and see how many hits each keyword gets. 

You can also look at how many Google Adword ads exist for your niche.  Several pages of Adwords indicates a high demand for your niche.

5. Talk to Your Market

Talk to three members of your target market on the phone & ask what their biggest problems are.
 
What is it that keeps them awake at night?  What are their biggest problems?  What are their fears, failures and frustrations?  What is costing them time and money?  Make notes and look for common problems.

6. Conduct an Online Research Campaign

There are an increasing number of online resources that allow you to research your market.  Two popular sites are Survey Monkey and Askdatabase.

A Survey Monkey campaign (http://www.surveymonkey.com) is free for up to 100 responses.  It is easy to set up, and you don’t need to have a website.  You can ask one or more tailored questions and can include multiple choice questions.

You can conduct an Askdatabase campaign via http://www.askdatabase.com .  This works via a monthly subscription – but you can have a 21-day trial for $1.

7. Activity on the Net

Sign up for and lurk on the forums associated with your niche and observe frequent problems.  Many forums allow members to post questions to the group.  What questions are being asked?  What problems are the members experiencing? 

See how many teleseminars there are that relate to your niche.  Search for teleseminar and “topic” on Google.  See what teleseminars and courses are being offered on your favourite forum.

You have decided on your target market for coaching and are committed to it.  You know you have to understand what your target market wants – but how?   How on earth do you find this out?  Read on for ten quick and easy ways to research your market.

1. Bookshop and library research

A great deal of information that you’re seeking has already been published.  So take a trip to a nearby large bookshop and go to the specialist section for your market. 

Look at how much shelf space is dedicated to your market niche.  This will indicate the demand in the marketplace.

The section manager or librarian of your specialist section knows which books they are selling the most of.  They may also be aware of new books about to be published.  Ask them to tell you which are the bestselling books in your niche area.

If it’s a narrow topic, look at the bestselling books and see how much of each book is dedicated to that topic.

Then go to a library and again see what takes up shelf space.  Talk to the librarian.  Which are the popular titles?  Pull a few off the shelf and flick through them.  What topics are covered?

2. What is on Amazon?

This is an easy search – go to www.amazon.com and see how many books relate to your target market.   

What are their titles?  What angle are they taking?  Look at the table of contents – what topics do the the books cover?  What do the reviews say?

Where you can, look inside – what problems are they solving?  Is the treatment academic or down to earth?  Make notes on your findings.

3. Do an Overture Search

Type in your topic to http://inventory.overture.com .  This will indicate how many searches were conducted on Overture for that topic last month.

This will also give you the most common keywords searched for relating to your topic, and the number of searches they got last month.  Make notes on the number of searches and the most frequently searched keywords.

Parts 4-10 of this article will continue in the next postings.