How One Comment Can Derail You
Sarah Short
Turning qualified coaches into well-paid professionals | ICF-Accredited Marketing Courses For Coaches | Mentoring | Straightforward, No Nonsense, Actionable Marketing Techniques | Prices from ￡3100 (inc VAT)
As you may already know, I am a founder and mentor with The Coaching Revolution. That means I spend all day, every day, helping coaches to build their coaching businesses.
I had a conversation with a coach recently that made me think. It made me think a lot.
Who Do You Rely On For Advice?
When we start our coaching business, particularly if it's the first time we have ever had our own business, we tend to talk to those we know and trust about what we should do. We discuss all sorts of stuff with them.
The few I can think of off the top of my head are:
- Pricing
- Website content and design
- What they think of our ideas for coaching programmes
- How they think we should market ourselves etc
This is all very well if the person/people you're talking to has/have experience of marketing a professional service-based business in the 2020s then they their advice probably isn't very helpful.
I know one coach who was charging ￡40 per coaching session, because her mum and her sister said that they would never pay more than that.
Another coach had no online presence, but had an entry in the online version of the Yellow Pages, because her husband said that's where he'd go to find a coach.
As you can see, none of these people was particularly helpful - the evidence for this is that neither of these coaches had any clients.
As a new coach probably need to advice from someone outside of your immediate circle of friends and family.
Another Source Of Unhelpful Feedback
Another place where unhelpful things can actually derail you, is social media.
That one nasty comment can utterly throw the coach who is new to marketing. That one nasty comment can feel like a knife in the heart; it really hurts and it's hard to ignore.
Examples of nasty comments include:
- HOW MUCH????? When referring to price
- I think coaching is vastly overrated. Usually said by someone with no knowledge of coaching
- I hate these pushy posts! Often said by someone who takes offence at something you posted that's not remotely pushy - because why would you be?
- I don't like the things you write. This was actually said to me by another coach!
Dwelling on this type of spiteful comment doesn't help, but it's hard to avoid.
Who To Take Notice Of (And Why)
The only people you need to actually take notice of are those who are knowledgeable and experienced in the field of marketing a coaching business (like we at The Coaching Revolution for example) and those who fit your ideal client profile.
If you do the ideal client work properly - and it's a big piece of work - you can take feedback from those who match this profile. Having an ideal client profile means that you will actively attract this kind of individual and that also means that you will repel others. And that's ok.
You can't market to everyone. You can coach everyone, but you can't market to them all. Trying to makes your marketing generic and just 'meh' and no one will listen to what you have to say.
Marketing to your ideal client will bring inbound enquiries and yes, the occasional negative comment. That's ok too - if it helps, I give you permission to ignore it ??
Inexpensive Support
If you'd like to learn more about how to market your coaching business, may I recommend that you read A Coaching Business In A Book? I wrote it for coaches just like you and it's available on Amazon.