Have you ever considered exactly how coaching clients will find you? That’s what this episode is all about.
Here I am in Week 2 of social distancing during the pandemic and I’m attempting somewhat of a structure for my life but definitely not business as usual. It does help to establish habits and a schedule as you can.
With so much suffering none of us can be in that default mode we had before. That said, I believe these times are an opportunity for learning new ways of managing our states of mind, taking extreme care and being community minded.
I hope you’re staying healthy. Many blessings to you.
Getting back to the Coaching Business Checkup series. This episode is all about mapping the journey your potential coaching clients will take to find you. Show notes can be found at prosperouscoach.com/69. And this episode follows on the topic of Episode 67, which was all about strategizing your coaching business model.
You can’t strategically map your customer’s journey until you’ve determined your business model. And you can’t determine your business model until you’ve chosen a viable target audience and discovered the BIG problem that motivates them to seek solutions.
See how it’s all connected? It’s all of a piece. That’s what strategy is all about.
What Is A Customer Journey?
It’s a plan with 4 main steps:
- Raise Awareness
- Provide Value
- Inspire Engagement
- Invite Them In
One step primes the next, which primes the next.
The secret to creating an effective customer journey (and anything for your business) is teaching yourself to think like your ideal clients.
What motivates them? What inspires them? What helps them trust you? What do they want? What turns them off?
No doubt you’ve been doing a lot to stay visible. Maybe you’re using a blog or podcast, social media and other methods to stay in front of your target audience.
- But do you have a strategy for that?
- Are you showing up where your audience is?
- Are you showing up often enough?
- Are they connecting your brand with their big problem?
- Is what you’re doing leading your audience to an outcome?
The first thing to consider is … what motivates your audience to seek solutions? Because if they aren’t out there seeking a solution you can help them to, how will you possibly grab their attention?
This goes back to their BIG Problem, which I talked about in Episode 65.
Using my business as an example, the big problem that motivates my ideal prospective clients to seek solutions is the agonizing question — “What’s my coaching niche?”
It’s the top of mind Big Problem for new coaches. For 14 years I’ve been raising awareness about that topic. Can I do more for my clients than help them identify a profitable niche? Absolutely! But I know that every coach struggles with this (I did!).
And I’ve made a long study in how to solve that problem.
What about you? How will you help your audience connect you and your brand to their big problem?
It takes consistency and congruence on your part for your audience to make that connection. It’s said that individuals need 12 occurrences of seeing your brand associated with their problem or goal to take a next step. In the current barrage of messages online, that could take a really long time.
Coaches often ask me how much is too much in terms of social posting, blogging, podcasting and other ways of building awareness. It’s definitely a squeaky wheel proposition because you can’t guarantee that any single person will see all of your posts, will listen to all of your podcasts or open your emails.
But don’t despair about this. There’s a point of saturation where your audience will start associating you and your brand as a go-to resource. And things get easier from there.
Posting what you had for lunch or endless memes on social media isn’t enough to build trust. You need to deliver enough value to inspire engagement.
What’s your prospective coaching client’s first point of contact with you?
9 times out of 10, clients who hire me have binge listened to my podcast. And/or they’ve found me through Coach Training Alliance, the coach training company that I co-wrote curriculum for and designed their certification program.
That leadership role has been a platform for my business. And it makes sense doesn’t it that leadership on a topic inspires engagement? That’s why publishing a book or being a guest speaker in a webinar (as long as it’s related to your niche) can raise your star.
How could you show leadership as it connects to your audience and what they care about?
What platform could you build or leverage that will help people find and trust you?
The last piece in this customer journey is when and exactly how you’ll invite your prospective coaching client to hire you.
Most coaches do this too soon. Their website has an offer for a Discovery Session right up front.
Why is it too much too soon? Because people are not ready yet to take that step. And that pushiness could turn them off and break the trust you’ve built. There’s a right time to invite that step.
There’s a tendency for coaches to be salesy in their website copy and features. Or they have everything automated so they don’t have to respond personally to prospects.
That’s a mistake.
When I teach my clients to create conversion processes for their website, we gentle ideal clients to the sales point.
If you’re using the Simple Coaching Business Model and offering a high ticket program as I suggest, you’ll enroll ideal clients if you respond personally to prospects at certain points along the way. It’s part of building trust. And it helps you have a business full of clients who fit you well.
So it’s time to consider … what is the customer journey that you’ve built to attract ideal clients to you? If you want help to create your customer journey or one of the steps that goes before such as choosing your niche, identifying your audience’s big problem or other crucial steps, let’s have a Strategy Session and get your business moving.
In the Next Episode: Attract More Motivated Coaching Clients Who Will Invest
