Blueprint to Building Your Coaching Business

Recently one of my clients came to me to help her launch her book as well as a remake of her website. She asked me if there was a way to make everything work together to promote her & her book. Here is a rough draft of what I laid out for her.

“Website” aka “Home Base” for Establishing Yourself as an Expert

I recommend that we start by building (or re-building) your website or what I call your “home-base” on a Wordpress Blog platform. The software itself is free and it is pretty simple to customize. Many of the WP themes are free and if they are customized correctly, they can be a work of art. Even better than the design being simple, it will be very easy for you or your virtual assistant to change elements of the information on the site / blog related to marketing yourself & your products.

• You can have all the static pages (unchanging – information stays the same over the long term rather than change daily) of a website prominently displayed in the navigation of this blog site for easy visitor navigation.
• Showcase regular posted content, which is great for search engine optimization and organic traffic. In addition a content rich site is a key component for you to build your brand image and develop a “know, like & trust” relationship with your visitors & clients.

There are also several plugins and widgets that I will recommend (in another post) that will help you promote your site, as well as be promoted by other bloggers and visitors. These plug ins are simple to install without messing things up.

This is where most coaches stop. If you add the following elements you will see an increase in subscribers, and followers – which, if you’ve researched your market and understand how to communicate with your audience, you will being to sell products & coaching services.

Lead Capture at main web/ blog site:

There must be a lead capture available in the upper right side bar with an offer to visitors and a form for capturing Name & email address.

Landing Page:

• Invitation to download a “sample” of your coaching method / message
• Promote your book / teleclass
• Promote a “free coaching” session – sample of what is possible with a paid package

Don’t promote all three of these thing on one landing page – only offer ONE along with invitation to visitor to subscribe by giving you their name and email address

In addition to the main web/blog site you should have a “single option landing page” that makes an offer for a free “something” related to your offer:

• ebook
• report
• mini-guide
• audio
• video
• e-course

This one page does not have links to anything else and only one choice – to sign up for your free download or not. Don’t send the visitor to your blog, to your social networking sites – just one single option – and that’s to sign up.

At the point when the visitor clicks the button to submit his or her name and email address, he or she is taken to a …

Thank you / Sales Page

Thank your visitor for requesting the free download (see list of possibilities). Remind the new subscriber to click on the confirmation link in their first email from you before they can get the download. On the same page make the offer for one or more of your products at a one time offered discount.  This offer is only good from this page the day the visitor lands on it, and will not be offered later. In place of a discount I actually recommend that you add additional bonus products – for example, if you offer a book for sale, add an audio of one of your classes that compliment the book.

The new subscriber will either buy or not with a “buy now” link on the page.

Follow up email

Don’t worry about losing your visitors, because once they sign up to get your free download you can follow up with a your auto responder series that gives them more information such as where to find your blog where you share your expertise.

I have tested this process, as have many other professionals, if you give your visitor many options to connect with you – lots of links all over your blog or to your social networking website profiles – you greatly reduce the amount of visitors that will subscribe to your email list.

Your number one goal should be to get your visitor on your email list, giving you a more intimate opportunity to communicate with your audience. This is the first step towards trust and prepares the visitor to take the next step of doing business with you.

When not to use this

This particular path of  landing page, to thank you/sales page, follow up email is not the link you want to put on your Twitter profile – that’s like asking for marriage on your first date. However, it is not such a drastic commitment when you visitor finds your landing page as a result of reading one of your published articles, because your article should set them up – develop interest and desire for more information which is what your download should offer once they get to your landing page. At the end of your articles you add an invitation to get more information by clicking on one single link that takes the visitor to your single option landing page.

Does this make sense? Have any questions? Leave me a comment and I will clarify.

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