Unrealistic Expectations Killing Your Coaching Business Growth?

You’re a coach in a jam packed market place - are you ready for the “New Year, New You” madness? ‘Tis the time of year for unrealistic expectations, crazy wild goals and launches offering fantastical results.?

You might hate social media marketing, preferring to find your clients through referrals or associate work - but sooner or later that’s either going to slow to a trickle or stop altogether.? I get why you find the thought of social media marketing so gross though, there are coaches hyping themselves right, left and centre.??

Coaching is an unregulated industry and every second person reckons they can solve all your problems by sky-rocketing, accelerating, power boosting or blasting you into the six figure business you never dreamed of.

But there is another way.?

It is possible to promote your business in a way that’s engaging, interesting and exciting with dignity and integrity AND makes you good money. Just because you’ve seen gross marketing doesn’t mean you have to do gross marketing.??

Expectations…..setting and managing them?

About 15 years ago I had a job as a community worker. The purpose of my job was to support people who lived in the area to be part of the regeneration process. To get them involved and engaged.? To help them identify the barriers they faced to health services, education, training and employment. Day to day this looked like organising community activities, initiatives, projects, training and trips.?

We were a brand new team.? Two community development officers, an admin and our boss the community development coordinator. On the day before our boss went off on holiday she told our team she wanted a 3D model of the town built by the time she got back in a fortnight.?

We racked our brains about the best way to make this model. We had limited materials, limited skills and no experience designing or building 3D models.?

The task blew my mind. There were so many questions unanswered;?

• What scale were we building it too??
• How much detail were we meant to include??
• What was the budget for materials??
• What were we building it from??
• Was it meant to be a permanent fixture or would we be recycling it??
• Where were we going to display it??

We tried our best to come up with something that looked like the town. We were all new in our roles and wanted to get it right. But all we had to hand were some cardboard boxes and an “E” at Art A Level between us.? The boss had gone off on holiday expecting to come back to our town’s answer to the Bourton-on-the-Water Model Village.? What she got was closer to the mashed potato mountain from “Close Encounters of the third kind”?

Her disappointment was palpable. We saw, heard and felt it. “I expected something better than this”.

Her expectations were waaaaaaaaaay off what we could deliver. We didn’t have the skills or the means to deliver her vision.? It might have helped if she’d been clear about what her vision was……..

I learned so many lessons from this in my own business, not least to understand my clients expectations and if I have the skills, experience, time and resources to deliver them.?

Communicating exciting possibilities?

A vital part of your marketing is about expectations. Setting and managing them.? It’s also an important step in qualifying your leads.? Ideally, your content helps you avoid getting on calls with people who aren’t ready to do the work, think coaching and counselling are the same thing or who aren’t ready to take responsibility for creating the changes they want to see.??

How do you demonstrate you’re a good investment and create a compelling vision of the potential results you can help your clients achieve but at the same time not overselling or making promises that you can’t hope to meet? We don't want to be so desperate to land the clients that our social media posts write cheques our services can’t cash.? Which is what makes marketing so hard.??

Creating urgency, desire and attracting new clients?

Here are my tips for creating compelling content that will get your audience interested in what you have to offer and get them one step closer to becoming prospects;??

1. Identify the biggest and most urgent problem your ideal client is dealing with right now and talk about it in your content. ?
2. Figure out the short, medium and long term impacts this problem is having on them and talk about that in your content.
3. Point out the short, medium and long term benefits of solving this problem?and, yes you guessed it, talk about it in your content.
4. Use testimonials, case studies and feedback to demonstrate instances where you have helped someone else solve this problem.?

Managing your own expectations with your marketing?

Manage your expectations around your marketing too.? Every piece of content you create should have a job but one blog, email or social media post can't do everything.? I’m talking about trust, authority, positioning, awareness building, audience growing, and sales.? That’s a tall order for one piece of content.?Content marketing has a cumulative effect over time. A strategy can help you speed this up.

• Decide what content you want to create and what its job is. I write blogs to drive traffic to my website. My social media is for sales and my emails are to nurture my audience. Because I know what each piece of content is doing I can tell if it's doing it’s job properly.?

• Be realistic about what you can achieve with organic social media marketing.? If you rely on social media for new custom but you only post twice a week you might want to have a word with yourself.? You know that saying "you get out what you put in…….."

• Marketing requires time, thought and effort.? Your results will be a reflection of the consideration and resources you dedicate to it.?

What do you want for yourself and your business in 2024? And what will it take to get there??Do your expectations match the time, resources and skills you have at your disposal?

My name is Clair Stevenson and I’m a content writing mentor and trainer for coaches and consultants.? I help you figure out where and how to speak to your ideal client so every word you write adds profits to your bottom line.? I help you find your voice online and master your message so you become well known for what you do.?

Would you like to find out more? Email me at [email protected]?