Being a professional coach requires not only a deep understanding of the field’s technical and mechanical aspects but also an understanding of a coaching framework that will result in sourcing paying clients. Too many coaches I know earn little to nothing for their efforts because they fail to recognize that coaching requires a unique set of skills to source the right kind of coaching client.
When it comes to earning a living as a coach, working with the right kind of coaching clients is paramount to your success. Coaching is fundamentally different than many other businesses. In most businesses, you attract customers to your business with SEO or rent someone’s audience with ads. Getting clients for most types of businesses is based on a hunter-gatherer approach. However, that approach never works for a coaching business. When it comes to coaching, forget all the pay-per-click schemes, Facebook, and Google ads, etc. You do not need these. These are all excuses not to work with people.
As a coach, you must be a people person first and foremost. Rather than adopting a hunter-gatherer approach, embrace becoming a gardener instead and building relationships. This is especially true as the price of what you offer increases.
Rich Litvin is the author of the book called The Prosperous Coach. He essentially coaches coaches. His book describes a four-stage framework that makes a lot of sense when building a consulting, mentoring, or coaching business. The framework stages are:
Connect with members of your network.
Invite those you can really help to take advantage of your zone of genius with a free session.
Create demand for your service by offering a few hours of intense coaching for free to demonstrate your value and expertise. Â
And finally, if it makes sense to work with the prospect, Propose a fee-based working relationship describing what it would look like and what it would cost to engage with you on a more permanent basis.
Let’s explore each of these stages in a bit more detail.
Connect Stage
The process should begin with a search through your network of friends and contacts and reaching out to them. Cold calling someone that you don’t know never works. They must know you.
To break the ice, I often start by emailing them an article or a link to a YouTube video that I think they might find interesting. Then a few days later, I follow up with a phone call.
This call should not be thought of as a sales call. You need to show genuine curiosity about what is happening in the person’s life. Don’t force it. Ask lots of questions.
At some point, they may ask what is new with you. Never lead with your story; let them bring it up naturally in the conversation. If they never ask, that is ok too; move on to the next call when you are done. If they inquire about what’s new with you, you should respond that you have a coaching business and are looking for a new client. But never give them the impression that the reason for the call was to solicit them. Your goal is just to inform your network that you are looking for a coaching client.
Sometimes my clients say nobody in their network would make a good coaching client. I remind them that they know people that know other people who know even more people. Your accountant, banker, insurance agent, etc., all know people they work with regularly, so make use of your professional connections to get referrals.
Rich tells his readers to forget about social media, making memes you can post on Facebook and Instagram because they are just time wasters. Instead, he suggests investing in meeting real people because it is not about getting likes or getting people to like you.
He adds: don’t waste time developing a highly polished website or writing lengthy emails to prospects about your value proposition or marketing what you do. When it comes to coaching, it is very personal. Get out there and talk to real people.
Instead, use that time to call someone you already know in your network or who has been referred to you and tell them you are checking in or following up on a referral. Your goal in the connect stage is to listen to the other person to see if they have a problem you can help with so you can move to the invite stage.
Invite Stage
If you discover during the connect stage that you have the skills to help them, you will want to invite them to have a face-to-face meeting or video chat to talk a bit more about their issue. When you ask them, “Would you like some help with that?†some will say yes. Others may hear what you are doing in the connect stage and tell you about someone in their network that may be struggling.
If you don’t know the person referred to you directly, get your contact to make an active referral. An active referral is when the referring party introduces you to someone in their network.
Dan Nowels, an old friend of mine, owned Benefit Solutions, an insurance agency. He was the best salesperson I ever knew and a master of active referrals. Every six months or so, he would invite me to lunch and never showed up alone. Dan always had someone who provided some business service, such as a bookkeeper, CPA, banker, or lawyer, as a guest. For the first fifteen minutes, he would go about introducing me and stroking my ego, telling this new person how great I was. Dan clearly understood the value of active referrals, and it really helped him grow his business.
If your network contact or their referral person says yes to wanting your help, you can move them to the create stage.
Create Stage
Since the writing of the book, published back in 2013, Rich has modified the definition of the create stage. The book defines the create stage as a 2-hour deep-dive, where your goal is to serve the prospect so powerfully that they will never forget the conversation and will engage your services as a coach to get more. Since then, Rich recommends starting with a shorter 20-minute chat to determine if they are ready to accept coaching. Therefore, in the invite stage, he suggests a 20-minute pre-deep-dive conversation to determine if they are serious about working with you as a coach, just being polite, or wanting to hear just a bit more about how you might be able to help.
Once you have determined that they are serious and not just tire kickers, you can invite them to the 2-hour deep-dive session if it makes sense.
Chat Session
You want the prospect to do most of the talking during the initial chat session. By the end of the chat, you want the answer to three fundamental questions:
Where they are today
Where they want to be
What is in their way
You will want to conclude the chat session with one final question, to uncover if they are ready or not for your coaching, by asking:
What have you done about that?
Sometimes people may have a dream but are unwilling to do anything about it, so progressing to a 2-hour deep-dive session makes no sense. The “What have you done about that?†question is the filter to determine if spending more time with them is worth it. If they appear ready to accept your advice, you should offer to block out two hours to have a more in-depth conversation.
2-Hour Create Session
Rich recommends a minimum of two hours for this conversation. You should view this time as a customer acquisition cost and not charge for your coaching at this point. You are using the create stage to create demand (hence the name of this stage) for your paid coaching services by demonstrating your value and using this discussion to audition the prospect to see if you should move them to the propose stage.
During the 2-hour discussion, I recommend employing the “5 whys†concept to get to the root of their problems and dreams. Your job during the create stage is to connect with them on a personal level to present them with a mirror so they can get a better view of themselves.
During the discussion, share stories, case studies, and antidotes. I call them sea stories because I was once a sailor. Stories are memorable and create emotion which is the goal of the create stage. Too many coaches think talking about their accomplishments is boasting; however, most people want a confident coach who knows how good they are. Stop all that fear-based fake humility.
During the 2 hours, give the person a tremendous amount of value. Don’t hold back the secret sauce to get them to hire you. Too many coaches will leave out a crucial bit and say “now hire me†for the critical piece. By servicing them powerfully and not making it about you or leaving out key parts, they will see that you really care about their success. As a result, they will more than likely become a social agent for your coaching business because you have created a level of reciprocity.
If at the end of the 2-hour deep-dive session, the person sees your value and you have something more that has the potential to change their lives, you can move to the propose stage.
Propose Stage
Remember, enthusiasm has a half-life. After providing value to a prospect, their enthusiasm is high, and the iron hot. At the end of the create session, two possible things may happen. One is a reply from the prospect such as “Thanks for your advice. It was helpful†or “That was great, let me think about it.†If you receive either of these responses, you are likely done, and the prospect is not yet ready to pay for your coaching.
Another response you may get is, “Wow, thanks, your advice was beneficial; how do I get more?†With this type of response, they are signaling they would like to move forward in some way. By this time, they know that you have a coaching business, so it is very appropriate to respond with something like. “I’m so glad you found value in our discussion. Imagine if we did this every week for the next six months or more. Would that interest you?†If they say yes, they would be interested, then share what it would cost and if they would be willing to write you a check.
Never end the propose stage with a discussion about affordability. If the discussion of price comes up, redirect the conversation to the possibility of the future.
But even if they do not agree to move forward and pay you for your expertise, they may share what you do with others based on the great experience they had with you during the create stage.
I have never pulled the trigger on doing a deal with a real estate company I know because the timing and situation of their offering were not right for me at the time. However, I have shared their contact information with many of my real estate clients. While it was not right for me then, I was impressed with the structure of their programs and shared their contact information with others when I thought it might make sense for the other party. Someday, I may do a deal with them, but only when the time is right. In any case, I have become an active referral source for them.
What are your plans to source your next coaching client?
