Is your coaching business starting to feel more like a labor of love than a thriving business?
Maybe it’s more like a hobby; it feels like a job, but if you’re not making any money, it really is just a hobby. You’re not the only one who loves the coaching part but might feel a little bit lost when it comes to attracting clients, building the business, and making lots of revenue. But here’s the good news: solving this problem is easier than you think.
I’m Karen Carr, and I’m going to walk you through some straightforward tips that will change your business from struggling to successful, and the last one is the one that was the ultimate game-changer for me, made the biggest difference in my own business, so I know that it works, and it can work for you too.
When I first started coaching in 2018, I really struggled.
I had this great program that I had come up with, but I had no idea how to market it. I had no idea how to find the people who would be interested in enrolling in the program and working with me as their coach. When I finally figured that part out, my business took off, clients started rolling in, and I made it to six figures in my first 12 months. I was making more money than I ever had before without having to work longer hours.
So, what did I do to turn things around?
The first thing was, I had to get good at saying no to business. Your brain probably totally freaked out when I said that, didn’t it? But all that means is that I decided who my target audience would be. You can help everybody, but that doesn’t mean that you should. It means that you decide who you help and how exactly you help them.
I kept narrowing down this idea of an ideal customer avatar in my head until I knew them inside and out.
I knew everything that was going through their brain, what their struggles were, what their problems were, why they hadn’t been able to solve it themselves yet.
Let’s say that you’re a weight loss coach. It’s not enough to say, “I help everybody lose weight.” What kind of people? Where do they live? What are they doing to lose weight? Is it through diet? Is it through exercise? Is it through fasting? You really want to drill down deep on exactly what your offer is and who would be the most likely person to benefit from your solution.
Whether you are posting on social media, you are writing a blog post, you are writing a script for a video, you want to put yourself in that person’s shoes. What are they struggling with right now? How can you solve that for them? You want to be specific, not only in what their problem is but what the solution is too.
If you can’t be specific, then your message is just so generic it gets watered down, and you become just one of a million weight loss coaches out there; there’s nothing that sets you apart from the rest of the pack. So yes, this will mean saying no to business. Saying yes to a client who is not your ideal customer is like stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime. Yes, you’re getting immediate revenue, but it’s not the way to build a sustainable, long-term, thriving business.
Now it’s time to take a stand and say all of the things that are going to alienate the people who are not your ideal customer out. We are pushing away the people who are not right for this offer. If you believe that intermittent fasting is the fastest, easiest, and most effective way of losing weight for women over 50, that is long-term sustainable and is the least restrictive thing that you can do, you need to say that in every single piece of content that you put out into the world.
I believe that video marketing with YouTube is the fastest and most effective way to build a six or seven-figure coaching business.
I say this so frequently I ought to just get it tattooed on my arm. I know that it works because I’ve done it for myself. I know that it works because I’ve done it for hundreds of other clients. I’ve seen it happen over and over again. I believe it to the depths of my soul.
Now, a lot of people will hear that message and say, “Oh no, I would never, never in a million years be on video. That is a hard no for me, girl.” And I’m okay with this. This is a good thing because anyone who is fundamentally opposed to this idea is never going to buy from me anyway. So let’s just push them away now so they don’t continue to follow me and then argue with me in the comments, and I spend all of my time trying to convince them why they are wrong and they should come over to my side because it’s so great over here.
Instead, I want to push those people away so that I am not marketing to the wrong audience. I will now be able to create a tribe of people who agree with my philosophy, people who believe, “Yes, you are right, this is the way.” I will establish myself as a thought leader and an authority in my space.
In order to attract your ideal people, you have to also be willing to repel the ones who are not.
Here is the best way to do that:
You’re going to pick the one main platform where your audience likes to hang out, and that you probably enjoy the best. You’re gonna do the majority of your marketing on that platform. For me, it’s YouTube, but for you, it might be Instagram. For other people, it might be blogging. For some people, it might be LinkedIn. Pick one platform as your dominant platform and maybe a secondary platform where you’ll also be present but still put the majority of your work on the main platform.
But take it from me, if you try to post on all of the platforms, it is totally overwhelming, and you end up posting the same content on the same platform over and over again, and your message just gets diluted and watered down. It is very difficult to be successful posting on all of the platforms, and the few that are, have giant teams. GaryVee is not doing this alone; he has an enormous staff of people that are doing this for him.
So decide what your main platform will be and don’t get sucked into every new and shiny object that comes on the market. At the time that I’m recording this, Threads just came out, but before that, it was Clubhouse, and before that, it was TikTok. You don’t need to jump on the latest and greatest bandwagon and start posting on that platform unless you try it and you really, really, really like it.
I built a six-figure coaching business off of YouTube with Facebook as a very distant second. It was not necessary to be on all of the platforms. I was coaching about YouTube, so it obviously made the most sense for me to be on YouTube. And if you are not using YouTube yet, I’m going to link to this video up here where I tell you all of the amazing benefits of promoting your coaching business specifically with the YouTube platform.
So now you’ve created this amazing presence on a single platform, telling the people who you are, what you do, and how you can help them. You’ve created a very strong brand. You’ve differentiated yourself from other coaches in your field. You’ve created compelling content that is getting in front of your ideal customer avatar, and it goes without saying that you are doing this consistently.
Posting a couple of times a month is not going to cut it. You need to decide what is reasonable for you, what can you commit to even when you don’t feel like it, because there will be a lot of days where you don’t. You woke up too late, you stayed up too late, you feel sick, you’re tired, your hair doesn’t look good, you got a giant zit on your chin, you don’t feel or look good, so the last thing…
You want to do is be on camera.
Too bad, suck it up and do it anyway. It’s not about you and what you look like; it’s about the people that you are helping. Would you really turn away a client who desperately needed you because your hair didn’t look good today? Of course not. You are going to find all kinds of reasons why it is more important for you to work on your P&L sheet today than it is to make content for your ideal customer avatar, but there is nothing more important than showing up consistently for the people who need you, the people that you are trying to help, the people that you want to help so desperately. That’s why you formed this coaching business in the first place.
So decide what that schedule will be and make it a priority. Put it on your calendar, treat it as an appointment, and you don’t cancel appointments. You would not say to a client, “Sorry, can’t meet you today, I’m tired.” Your client’s gonna say, “So? Welcome to my world. I’m tired every minute of my life.”
Ready to take your coaching business to the next level? Get my FREE resources to help you create a winning video strategy for your coaching brand. Whether you’re just getting started with video or looking to up your game, these resources will provide you with valuable tips, tricks, and insights to help you succeed.
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