How goes it?
“Well enough. Feels like a transitional period within a larger transitional period, and as that beats stagnation, why, there we are.”
What does that mean?
“I’ve had an epiphany of sorts about my coaching business.”
Go on.
“I was reading The Barefoot Coach by Paddy Upton, and there was a passage about how one must play to his strengths – ‘patching up your weaknesses will never lead to excellence’ – and it got me inventorying my strengths. Which quickly led to an inventory of my weaknesses. And topping that list is sales.”
What does that say?
“Nothing new. It all feels painfully transactional, and I would rather be several worse things than transactional. It’s the last thing I wish to be.”
What then?
“I pay someone else to do the selling. I will pay for a marketing strategy from a marketing agency.”
What does that look like?
“I’m glad you asked. It looks like a way of targeting potential clients in a way I am unable to do. Nobody admits it very loudly until you get to certification, I’ve noticed. That’s when you have to have five clients, and everybody sort of panics because they don’t have but one or two. An inability to find clients, if most student coaches were honest, is the thing they most wish to work on.”
What stops them?
“The futility of it, methinks. They know they don’t know how to do it. They know the instructors, right after lunch on day 3, tell them the secret is to specialize in something, or else to generalize in everything, and it all feels so hopeful. But everybody’s back next month, and at best a few have another client or two. But nobody’s filling his calendar. I’ve kept in touch with enough of my classmates from Denver and Atlanta and Boston to know it’s not a regional thing, either.”
What have you tried?
“Emailed everyone I know. Gave out 15 or so free sample sessions. Created this site. Cool business cards with a QR code. Talk to folks in coffee shops.”
I like this site!
“Thanks. Me too.”
What else?
“I realized part of my fixation on December’s SAFe certifications was born of not knowing what else to do along this coaching pathway. The next steps are to register for the final two classes then begin certification. But why hurry? They’re not handing out clients with a diploma. The most I see happening on this current pathway is registering to coach students also looking for clients.”
What’s wrong with that?
“It’s not sustainable. It feels fraudulent. What happens, say, when a student-coach client admits her greatest impediment is finding new clients?”
What’s your plan?
“I am going to take 30- to 50-percent of what certification costs and spend it with a marketing agency. I don’t care if it takes a year or a decade to make the money back in coaching – I’d be overjoyed if this coaching business were ever profitable – I just want to be able to coach, and every moment spent worrying about how to get better at marketing and sales is time not spent at improving things I’ve a talent for.”
What will success look like?
“Twenty paying clients.”
When will you do this?
“I emailed three marketing agencies this morning.”
___
And four more that afternoon, and none of them replied (true story).
Then I texted a sharp friend who went from being a barista to a successful marketing consultant pretty quickly, and he gave me some ideas – including a couple that probably brought you over here.
So now that you’re here, you’ve seen me at my least competent. “And if you can’t handle me at my least compet . . .” no wait, that’s the wrong quote!
I’m way better at coaching than I am at marketing, selling or sprinkling celebrity citations, I promise. Give me a tryout and see.