You Can't Be Coached Across A Knowledge Gap

I've been talking with a couple of groups of coaches over the last few days. They're not Coaching Revolution coaches, but they are qualified (or part-qualified) coaches. We've talked about lots of things, and as always, the topic has strayed onto their coaching businesses.

When I'm Confident, My Clients Will Come

One coach who is just starting out, said that he knows that once he has his first client, he will feel more confident, which will in turn lead to more clients.

I hate to rain on anyone's parade, but confidence in your delivery skills isn't going to find you clients. I would postulate that most coaches are confident in their delivery skills, but that doesn't mean that most coaches have paying clients. Or not as many as they may like anyway.

I always find myself feeling like the Grinch when I say stuff like this; like I'm just a bloody killjoy. I'm not at all. (In fact, I've been referred to as 'nauseatingly optimistic' ??????). What I am though is a straight-talker.

The straight-talking northern woman in me needs to say this; your lack of clients has nothing whatsoever to do with your coaching skills. Those are your delivery skills. It has everything to do with your sales and marketing skills. Those are the skills you need to create the opportunity to do the delivery!

Everything I Need To Know To Succeed Is Inside My Head

As coaches, we know that individuals have the answers to their situations already. That with good coaching, those answers can come out and into the everyday lives of our clients. Because we know this, we coaches assume that we already know what we need to do to succeed in our coaching businesses.

Here's the rub; we don't.

Sales and marketing skills do not already exist inside the heads of most coaches. As this is a fact, then it follows that these skills cannot be coached out of your head.

You Cannot Be Coached Across A Knowledge Gap.

The majority of coaches have a particular knowledge gap when it comes to building a coaching business. The knowledge that is missing is how to comfortably and professionally market their coaching business. However many of these same coaches aren't aware of this knowledge gap.

The thing about marketing is that it seems like it should be common sense, doesn't it? It seems like making sure that everyone knows what you do, and that you explain the premise of coaching to them is the right thing to do to grow your business. But it isn't. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Casting your net wide is an almost cast-iron guaranteed way to fail.

Laser-Focus Is Required

Focusing your marketing in on a very tight market sector is the answer to your client-gaining quest. It feels irrational to the untrained mind that focusing tightly on a single market sector will bring success, doesn't it? What about everyone else? You'd like to coach them too, right?

I have this conversation hundreds of times a week and in an effort to teach coaches why what I say is true, I have created Coaching Republic. It's a community of coaches who are all focused on building a coaching business. In Coaching Republic, I teach fortnightly masterclasses, always focused on sales and marketing a professional services business. These classes are recorded, and are always free.

If you're done with free stuff and you just want the fastest way to find clients, perhaps our mentoring programme might be the answer? We could talk? A conversation is free and it's always a pleasure to chat to another coach, right? This is my diary.