Convert the Reputation & Attention You Get From Your Free Give-Away

“Free is not a magic bullet. Giving away what you do will not make you rich by itself. You have to think creatively about how to convert the reputation and attention you can get from Free into cash.” Chris Anderson, author of  Free: The Future of a Radical Price

Do you realize that “free” is a business strategy?

This quote from Chris Anderson’s book says it well. The powerful strategy behind the free giveaway that you give to new subscribers gives you the opportunity to build reputation and attention; your on-going strategy is to convert that into to cash.

You’re missing out if you’re not giving away something with enough value to build reputation and attention to your message, method, & promise.

Your emailing strategy is the “build” – continuation of what you started with your free special report, mini-guide, white paper, manifesto, audio, video -whatever your give away is – the backend is in the email follow up. You lose momentum and credibility if your giveaway and your follow emails don’t build your reputation and capture your prospects attention.

Take a look at your lead capture strategy. This is a pivotal piece in your marketing. A lot is riding on this.

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Just Get Up and Get Busy Communicating Your Message, Method & Promise

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”

— Stephen King

I read this quote over at Michael Hyatt blog. Of course this is aimed at aspiring authors – but it got me to thinking. If you are a coach doing business on the internet, some form of writing is a staple for communicating to attract your perfect client.

You may not think you’re a writer or an author. You may not think you are in the “publishing” business.

You ARE in the communication business.

The perfect recipe for building your coaching business is “just get up and get busy communicating” your message, method & promise.

Message: The foundational story that presents the solution to a problem your identified perfect client is looking for. When your perfect client here’s your message, your story, they say, “yeah, me too. I can so relate to that.”

Method: Your unique process for solving a particular problem or set of problems. Or your unique process for taking someone from satisfaction mixed with unrest to new heights of inspiration.

Promise: What do your clients get, or aspire to achieve because they have worked with you. How have you moved them farther, quicker or both because of their investment of time and finances with you and your method.

Your perfect customer may be attracted by reading your blog posts, your articles, listening to recorded audio or watching a video. If you are only doing one form of communication you might miss many ideal clients who are best reached with a different communication tool. What? Okay if you only write in your blog – you could be missing perfect clients that love to listen to an audio or watch a video.

Coaches are in the business of communication. Plan this into your daily activities so that your perfect client can be attracted to you.

How do you attract your perfect client?

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“When words fail music speaks.” -Hans Christian Anderson

Marketing is like singing your song (your coaching message) and your ideal prospect senses that your song resonates and joins in to form a harmonious relationship where the prospect becomes a happy client and benefits, and you get paid for the value you bring to the relationship. The following is not a perfect analogy, but I am hoping you will help me by adding to the comparison of music and marketing.

1. If you don’t define your market niche you’re marketing will be like an out of tune instrument with random sounds that don’t resonate pure sound with anything – your marketing becomes “noise” in the marketplace.
2. The better you have defined your ideal prospect and you begin to tell your story, or in this case “sing your song” your voice is pure clear sound and your ideal prospect joins in. Your coaching message and the clients need harmonize, just like using a tuning fork for the starting key of a song or to tune an instrument.
3. Your marketing should, just like the turning fork, harmonize with whoever is “in key” with your song. Prospects that read your marketing material and move on are not in harmony with your message.

If we look at marketing as music it seems to me that it would just be easier to think of it as music that harmonizes well or not, or, different genre’s of music that appeals to different listeners.

So if you’re a coach that hates marketing, maybe you’re not tuned in to a genre of marketing that makes you and your ideal prospects heart sing.

I would love to hear your thoughts about this. Please leave me a comment.

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Coaching & Business or Coaching as a Business

In order for your practice of coaching to be profitable you must operate it like a business, otherwise it’s just an avocation or a hobby.

av-o-ca-tion – n. An activity taken up in addition to one’s regular work or profession, usually for enjoyment; a hobby.

A business is profitable when operated with certain best practices. Yet many coaches who have trained and certified as coaches don’t make the time or the investment to learn profitable business practices. Many coaches actually avoid the very practices that would bring them the profit they are seeking.

Milana Leshinsky,  of Coaching Millions, in her New Coaching Manifesto talks about the 91% of coaches who are failing miserably as business owners because they spend way too much time trying to define or defend the profession of coaching rather than focusing on creating value and problem solving for a culture of people that really need a coach – but don’t yet understand the true value of coaching.

Here are the problems as I see it:

Unsuccessful coaches…

1. think “coaching” is their niche
2. do not have a message that clearly communicates value or solution to a particular prospect
3. avoid marketing like it is something painful
4. have no clear path for the prospect to become a paying customer
5. do not ask for the business
6. wait for clients to find them
7. have only one product – either one on one coaching or group coaching

Think about other businesses or professions.

Would you go to a restaurant that had a sign in the window that said, “We serve food”?

How about if you saw a business open in your community that had no sign, no way at all of knowing what the business had to offer – just a commercial building with the doors open? Would you go there to do business?

What about a business with an open sign but when you went inside, no one was there?

What are some of the practices of other professions, ones that you do business with?

Successful businesses have an easily identified product or service with an ideal client or customer in mind. A way to get their attention and offer their product or service for an exchange of money.

Let’s consider the example of the restaurant – no one is offended if the owner announces, even advertises that it serves only Mexican food. People that don’t like Mexican food can choose another restaurant. No one is offended when they receive advertisements about the restaurant or when a commercial comes on during their favorite evening show on television.

Yet, many coaches are struggling because “they serve coaching” (so what?!), and they don’t actually want to market their business – in fact they don’t know who they are solving a problem for and how to let anyone at all know that they solve a problem.

So what am I saying?

To be successful as a coach you must implement sound business practices. You must

• know who your ideal prospect is
• have a clear message of what problem you solve  or value you create
• a unique method for creating the solution
• have systems for attracting and communicating with your ideal prospect
• ask for the business
• have multiple entry levels for the client to do business with you and experience your method and solution

If coaching is something you feel passionate about, something you love to do – but unless you implement good business practices, it will be impossible to make a decent living, nor will it fund the life of your dreams.

Is coaching your business? What will you do about it?

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