If you are a coach, marketing may be hard for you to do, here are some tips and tricks for how to get new clients and make more money.
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Why I Wrote This Post
My son is a lacrosse fanatic! He loves playing lacrosse and is dedicated to improving his game. With that in mind we hired a coach for him (Coach Harry) who made my heart so happy by wanting to talk to me about marketing.
Coach Harry is a entrepreneur who teaches himself and also has 4 other coaches that he is a “Rainmaker” for. He gets new clients and kind of keeps the whole coaching enterprise rolling.
With that in mind I wanted to give Coach Harry a generally starting point and primer for how marketing works and how a coach could attract loads of new clients while still being really true to his mission and his goals.
Whether you are coaching sports or coaching entrepreneurs or are a life coach, lead generation and sales all look the same marketing wise, so keep an open mind and figure out how you can take the ideas in this post and make them work for your business!
Giving Away Your “Best” Stuff
Before we get going to far, I want to talk about the kinds of people who will consume your content, giveaways and early funnel pieces.
There are 3 types of people who are going to be interested in your freebies…
Do Nothings – These are people who are consuming your content as entertainment. They like to see tips and ideas, they want to feel like a part of your community, but they are never going to act on anything you say.
Do It Yourselfers – There is another subset of people who are going to take what you tell them and implement it themselves. In Coach Harry's world, this may be the Dads who watch every video and them implement it with their own kids. These people probably won't (or can't afford) hire you to be their coach, but the cool thing is you can still help them!
Your Potential Clients – By giving away great general information you will attract the kinds of people who want personal training from you. These people are who you need to focus on in all your coach marketing efforts.
Who Is Buying Your Services
One last thing we need to talk about before we get to the funnels is thinking about who is going to buy your coaching.
In Coach Harry's world it could be a kid who notices Harry and asks his parents to pay, or a parent who notices Harry and wants to get help for his or her kid.
This works in all kinds of situations… you could be selling coaching that a business owner buys for their employee to train them.
Knowing who to attract for the top of your funnel is important because if the client doesn't have the ability to pay then you will not be getting leads that will convert to sales.
Marketing Magic
I lied! There is one last thing that I want to talk about before the funnels and that is Marketing Magic.
If you get good at marketing you can conjure leads and sales out of thin air. You will just be living your life and someone will come along, already primed to buy and “poof” they will give you money without any effort on your part.
The reason I harp so much on who to target is that you want to make sure you pointing yourself in the right direction with your marketing.
For example, Coach Harry might like coaching kids who are super enthused about lacrosse and are seasoned players more than he likes teaching the basics to newbie players. In that case he would only show high level moves and not focus on the beginning moves in his marketing.
It is worth your time to learn about how to make a perfect customer profile that will tell you who your marketing is attracting!
Sales Funnels For Coaches
Thanks be to the little baby Jesus, we are FINALLY to the sales funnels! But of course I wasn't going to let you off without telling you WHAT a sales funnel is first!
What Is A Sales Funnel
A sales funnel is a structured path that you want your prospect to follow to a specific outcome that is good for you.
Now, that outcome might be a new client (yay!) or it might to be to sign up for your email list (yay!) or it might be to follow you on social media (okay).
The main thing to know is that you should NEVER do anything marketing-wise without knowing first what the outcome of that marketing is intended to be!
Simple Sales Funnel For Coaches – Social Media
If you are just starting out with no money for marketing and no idea who your perfect client is, then casting a wide net and trying to get anyone is your only option.
This is how most businesses start their marketing journey and it can be very useful in the day and age of wide viewers on sites like Instagram and TikTok.
I tend to think that more of the leads that would come to Coach Harry from these social sites would be kids who have lots of time to watch TikToks or how to play lacrosse more effectively.
Now he could target different types of clients like the guys who are shooting or the ones who guard the net with the long sticks, but the finesse of finding his perfect clients is going to be harder to do when there is no real funnel involved.
Medium Sales Funnel For Coaches – Email Marketing
A next step that Coach Harry could do to increase his leads would be to set up and email marketing campaign targeting the parents of his players (email won't work for kids, they just aren't using it).
With this method Coach Harry is still using the power of social media to find new prospects, but he is getting them away from social media and into his own ecosystem (email).
Getting your prospects off of social media and into a marketing channel you own and control is super important for a number of reasons:
- You could lose your account and connections with all those prospects
- They are being inundated with your AND other people's marketing
- You get the chance to say exactly what you want on your own timeline to your subscribers
WHY would people (parents) sign up to Coach Harry's email list and what could he send to them that they would be interested in?
The very first thing that comes to mind that parents could want for their kids is to get them a college scholarship for playing lacrosse… so a free giveaway could be “5 Ways To Prepare Your Son To Get A Collage Lacrosse Scholarship”.
That is a little long but he could finesse it down the line after he gets some feedback from the people he has on his email list (YES! You get to talk to them and find out what they are thinking!)
And let's talk about that weekly email!
Functionally people who have signed up to Coach Harry's email list have explicitly said they want to hear from him and he can talk all about his clinics coming up, share his social media videos and also give tips and tricks just to the people who are most interested in his marketing messages.
It is a known fact that most people have to hear about you 7 times before they decide to make a buying decision.
Getting to talk to your prospects on a weekly basis is a sure way to increase their exposure to your marketing messages!
Complex Sales Funnel For Coaches – Referral Marketing
Okay, last but not least is a more complex, multi-part referral marketing campaign that targets a source that can get you multiple clients all at once!
Referrals are the absolute best way to get qualified prospects that are ALREADY predisposed to liking and trusting you!
My son working with Coach Harry is the perfect example of this!
His lacrosse team was told about a clinic that Coach Harry was holding which we paid for him to attend. After showing us how good his services were, we decided to pay for one-on-one coaching which is even more expensive (but worth it!)
When you are marketing you need to target the people who A) want your services and B) who can afford them.
By doing the clinic for a club team (we pay for Joesiah to play on a travel lacrosse team AND pay for all of our travel to attend the tournaments), Coach Harry knew he was targeting parents and kids who were ALREADY used to spending a good amount of money to train their kid.
So how can you get in front of someone else's audience and start a referral program with them?
First, figure out who has your perfect clients all in one place. This could be a person who sells to your same audience but does something else, or could be group that just naturally has your prospects already.
Then make a compelling offer to that group or person that will benefit them AND their audience.
I can't put the whole referral system in this post, so make sure to read that linked post above! It has LOTS of great referral tip ideas!
Sales Funnels For Coaches Wrapup
Okay, that was A LOT, but if you can get your head around why thinking about a sales funnel BEFORE you do your marketing is important you will get more clients you love more easily!
If you have any questions, please shoot me an email [email protected] and I will try to head you in the right direction!
