Recently, I overheard a coach that I didn’t know saying that her business had been doing well and then over this summer everything came to an abrupt halt.
Prospects weren’t showing up. People stopped opening emails and no body was engaging.
Her income slowed way down, and was totally ready to give up on her business.
And I thought to myself…
“Don’t give up!”
“Instead accelerate and expand your efforts to attract ideal clients.”
Hearing her anxiety made me remember when I was a new coach. Here’s what I realized way down the road…
The daily pain I felt about fluctuations in my business came down to one mistake …
Taking things personally instead of responding strategically.
You Control Your Results in Your Coaching Business
So, I’m just wondering, has that slow down happened for you?
Are you letting yourself be blown around in the wind
as if you have no control over your coaching business?
My friend, it is time for a mindset shift.
Here’s the truth … you do have control over way more than you think you do in your business. Yes, you may need to make small incremental adjustment to help your coaching business thrive, but YOU hold the controls for the most part.
Think about it …
YOU control:
- How often and how effectively you’re getting in front of your target audience.
- Your fees.
- What value you deliver, and
- Can even have a significant influence over how attracted your audience is to what you offer.
Can you ultimately control whether they say ‘yes’ or ‘no t’o your offer? Absolutely not and nor should you because people have free will!
If you haven’t heard it already, I have a whole series called Coaching Business Checkup with 9 episodes that go step by step into the most strategic things you can do before you launch your coaching business or after you’ve launched.
There’s also a downloadable self-assessment to test what’s working and what’s not working in your coaching business. Find that whole series and the self assessment at prosperouscoach.com/checkup. Go grab that!
The Seasons of Your Coaching Business
All that said, there is one thing you can’t control. You cannot control a seasonal slow down.
But you can shift your mindset about how you respond it and even plan for it.
Depending on your target audience and the flow of their lives there may be a few times each year when paying clients will be less likely to hire you.
Typical slow down times relate to the school year:
- Spring break
- Late summer
- Christmas and New Years
And then there are events like major elections.
Short-term stress leading up to and just beyond an election may mean people are less grounded to make big decisions. The stock market often dips at those time.
But don’t think that long-term stress has the same effect. It does not. That’s why I don’t recommend that you hold off on launching or marketing your business.
How we fool ourselves into thinking certain times aren’t good for running a coaching business!
How Smart Coaches Respond to Seasonal Slow Downs
Plan both practically and emotionally for these slower times. Don’t be surprised by them.
The first thing of course, is to manage your money to prepare for temporary doldrums that happen now and then. And work on your mindset so you don’t feel blown around and out of control.
A typical response to school year related slow downs is to pull back, sit around and wait for something to happen. That’s actually the worse thing to do.
Step into the CEO role shoes of your business, guys!
You’ve got to RUN your business!
A more decisive approach would be to plan vacation for those times.
But a different and more savvy approach is to use those slower times to plan and create more ambitious campaigns that you can launch when the slow down passes.
Just after the first week of September and the first week of January are the classic times in Western cultures when adults swing into action to improve their lives.
If you are extra active during those times you stand a good chance to win significant market share. If you miss that time don’t worry about it, there’s another one coming.
Look I know that phrase might make you wince. But truly, we all are vying for attention, including coaches and any other type of marketer, which is simply a person who has something valuable to offer and wants to let people know they exist.
All marketing really is, is communication. And it can be done in an authentic and non-salesy way.
To grab attention target a narrow audience and create a stand out niche so you’re not just another voice in an ocean of voices but rather a unique voice for a unique group with a highly valuable message that they want to hear.
The way I respond to shifts in the market place? Never stop publishing valuable content weekly and have smart systems in place to continually attract paying clients no matter what’s going on in the world.
This is a big part of what I help coaches to create in my 5 month VIP Coaching Business Breakthrough program.
So, as I say all of this about seasonality, consider not taking my word for any of it.
Do your own assessment of peaks and troughs in enrollment for your business. Give yourself a few years to track the flow and make micro adjustments in the way you do things.
But know this … the most experienced business owners and marketers will tell you that the key to success is consistency.
Stopping and starting your marketing in cycles could actually cause the slow down.
As a business owner your goal is to learn to be agile and move with the flow instead of against it or just let it push you around. You can do it!