The Latest Updates in Pitching and Converting Coaches

This marks the start of a series I'll be sharing, somewhat facetiously, on the latest approaches marketers are using to try and pitch to coaches. I'll share some context here to start us off, but if you just want to get to the current approach to pitching, you can scroll down.

Context

If you're ever feeling lonely on LinkedIn, what I suggest you do is change your title to "Coach". You will instantly find people seem surprisingly eager to connect with you.

As an industry, the coaching profession does a very poor job teaching coaches how to serve people through the hiring process, and how to support them to move past their fear to make a commitment into their own lives.

How coaches are left is that they are terrified of being pushy, grow to despise the sales process, and then wish they could coach but don't want to actually engage with selling coaching. Simultaneously, they fail to realize that creating clients is actually the same process as supporting a client to step into any other project they have that is confronting and scary.

So you end up with coaches that are unwittingly circumventing the very thing that would have their clients thriving in the first place. The argument goes "Well, I don't mind pushing them once we're working together", which is kind of like saying "I'll show up differently once the circumstances are different", and that is very similar to "Well, I'll be different tomorrow".

In effect, you end up with coaches that are modelling the antithesis of coaching: waiting until they're ready, rather than leaning in before we feel ready.

Marketers meet this breakdown in the coaching profession, and there is a continuous stream of marketers trying to pitch transactional-based marketing approaches to coaches that are feeling frustrated, scared, needy, or unaware of the real reason things aren't working for them.

The Humanity

The truth is that coaching is a terrifying profession. You're selling a relationship with yourself, and when someone says No, they're not saying no to your widget — they're saying No to you.

Supporting people to overcome their fear is hard work, and often quite heartbreaking, as they'll choose back into what is safe and come up with excuses for not pursuing their dreams. Not only that, but they'll do so after you've worked hard to help them get clear and present to the possibility their dreams represent.

Additionally, this work tends to be cyclical. When my practice is in a downswing, these approaches to marketing can feel hooky for me. "Maybe I DO need to do X, Y and Z", I'll wonder to myself. Nothing else seems to be working!

I've been running a successful coaching practice for almost 15 years, and I still get caught by my fears. So, it makes sense that all of this stuff is out there — it works, at least to hook us when we're caught by our fear.

I want to be really clear that this series isn't about making anyone wrong. Marketers aren't bad people for their attempts to market to me this way, and coaches aren't bad people for not working with their own ontological coaches and breaking through the paradigm they're stuck in.

We're all innocent in our unconsciousness, even when what we're doing is causing harm on some level. This is the nature of having blindspots.

Instead, this series is intended to shine light on what is happening, so that we can at least be a little more conscious in our approach. This is how we heal and transform.

The Latest Approach to Pitching

Every six months or so, it seems like a new angle comes around for how to engage with people. The strategy is a little like an MLM-approach. Connect first with people, and get them talking with you. Once they've responded to you, you can then make an offer and try to get them into your funnel.

I assume that what is taught is that it's much easier to have people accept your funnel-based offer of service once they're already talking with you, than it is if you just cold-pitch them a service.

Here's how the latest approach currently looks:

Hi Adam

I noticed your post!

Is it possible to send me more information about your services/coaching programs?

Would love to connect and learn more!

"But Adam", you might say, "your posts are awesome and this person might genuinely be simply seeking to learn more about your ridiculously transformational coaching programs.

Yah, maybe. Except, I've gotten this same message about six times in the past three weeks.

The current trend by marketers seems to be to try to grab ahold of my attention by feigning interest in my coaching offerings, which will then trigger my neediness and get me responding eagerly.

Before the latest trend, the posts used to look something like: "Hey Adam, I see you're doing good work at Evergrowth Coaching Inc. I'm curious, are you accepting new clients?"

A similar approach, but now they've refined it a little bit I guess.

When/if I respond, it's only a matter of time before I'm sent the top part of the funnel that will definitely help my practice get to the next level.

For the Marketers

If you're one of the people that has been taught this approach, I want to offer you something to consider:

When you approach this way, you are leading with disingenuity. You might insist that you are genuinely interested in a coaches services and programs, but after offering the benefit of the doubt, what happens each time is that that curiosity begins and ends at "I want them to send it to me so that I can see how they might be served by what I have to offer".

That isn't genuine curiosity. That's fishing.

Every time you do this, you create distrust and leave people in a feelsbad experience.

The ultimate impact of this is that you come off as disingenuous, sneaky and slimy. (Your intention may be something different, but I'm sharing your impact. If your intentions are different than this impact, then consider this feedback invaluable and that you may need to make some changes).

What you are then effectively selling to the coach is:

I'm leaving you with an experience of sliminess and sneakiness. How about I bring you clients by creating that same experience in them?

How do you imagine those conversations are going to go for the coach? If the coach genuinely doesn't care about the experience their prospects has, and is simply looking to play a numbers game (as these approaches seem to attempt) then maybe that doesn't matter. Is that the kind of coach you're looking to serve?

Changing the Script

For those that want a different approach, you can check out my free online course on Creating Clients. I created this course to support coaches with how to create a thriving coaching practice from relationship and service. This applies to you marketers as well.

You can access that material for free, without any strings attached here:

https://adamquiney.com/the-creating-clients-course/

The password is "2020CreatingClients"

That's everything for our inaugural edition of "The Latest Updates in Pitching and Converting Coaches". See you next time.