If Your Coaching Business is a Little Slow, Follow Seth Godin's Advice

I'm a subscriber to Seth Godin's Blog, because he's a great writer and really "gets" the whole "marketing with integrity" thing that is the only way to become a successful coach. I wish I had written the following post that he wrote for real estate agents. Only I would have written it for whiny coaches during the last recession, when a lot of them needed to hear it...

Read entire post at the Coaching Blog. 

Client Attraction

I shudder whenever I hear a coach talk about 'prospecting' for clients or when they refer to a potential client as a hot 'prospect.' Doesn't that turn the person into an object? Not pretty. I think a better approach is to view everyone you meet as an amazing person who doesn't need you, yet to whom you can give a gift. Is the gift an Attraction principle? No. An offer for free coaching? No. A business card? No. A patient ear? No. Rather, the gift to give a person is themselves. If you can point out something about them that they've forgotten or never knew, you've created a gap that they can grow into. Now, I'm not talking about complimenting or acknowledging a person, because that's usually manipulative. Instead, I'm talking about becoming the type of person who -- AS A MATTER OF COURSE -- points out something positive about the person. In other words, become that type of person, instead of using this as a marketing or emotionally-hooking technique. See the difference? Here's an example of what I'm talking about. Instead of saying, "I like the way you talk," you'd say something like "You have a compelling way of speaking." Instead of saying, "You're obviously very successful," you'd say something like, "You handle your success very graciously." Instead of saying, "I'm sorry to hear that your business isn't doing well right now," you'd say something like "I can only imagine the amount of stress you're under right now." In other words, get what the person is feeling and empathize with them in this 'advanced' way. Or pick up something unique or special about the person and point that out. So, you're stating the obvious without puffery, yet it's a different thing than the person has probably ever heard before. THAT'S what gets their attention and THAT'S what will attract them as a client. AND, if you do this with EVERYONE because it's the type of person you are, you WILL get more clients. And how do you become this type of person without it being an act or performance? --You'll naturally become this type of person as you integrate the Attraction Principles. You will become generous because you can afford to be. -- Thomas J. Leonard

No Wonder Clients Aren't Buying

I still watch 60 Minutes every Sunday night, if I can catch it. Last night, they had a feature called, "BS Rules". It was tough, because they couldn't actually say the word in the title.

"BS Rules" was inspired by an unexpected bestseller by, Harry G. Frankfurt, a distinguished professor of philosophy at Princeton University. ON BULLSHIT is a serious philosophical work that normally would only sell a few hundred copies, but the title has struck a chord with so many that it's selling hundreds of thousands.

Hey, it struck a chord with me, too!

I've specifically thought about this in regards to coaching. (Well I do sort of have a one-track mind.)

I've been meaning to write about this subject since the first day of the CoachVille Annual Conference, when Dave Buck got up and asked, What's wrong with coaching?

Without stopping to think, I spontaneously wrote in my notes:

The hype has separated us from our souls.

I stared at that for a few seconds and forgot to listen to Dave, anymore. The hype is killing us, quite simply.

What hype? Marketing hype! Branding hype! Advertisements disquised as newsletters! Products that will make coaches money! Yadyadayada!!

Geeze! I'm so sick of hype, I'm choking on it. And hype goes deeper than that, too. It shows up in promises that aren't kept, even though you meant well. It shows up in products that are designed according to what the market is buying, not what people want. It shows in compromised integrity. It shows up when you strive to get people to buy, rather than attract them, because you have something they really want. In other words, hype is BS.

Coaches mean well. They're just not thinking at a high enough level to attract clients. No wonder people aren't buying!

We're operating at a paradigm level that's no higher than (or even lower than) most of our potential clients. The materialistic/entrepreneurial/corporate mindset that has dominated American culture for decades is in decline. Corporate refugees, victims of downsizing, burned consumers; those people don't want more of the same. They've had it. Coaches need to be operating at a higher paradigm then that, in order to help them shift to a new way of thinking. That's what coaches are for! Not to insert them in our product funnels and squeeze more and bigger dollars out of them.

Why should people trust us with their lives, their dreams and their futures if they feel like our first motive is to make money from them? Most people live in such a climate of mistrust that if they sniff even the slightest bit of an agenda, they become suspicious. Not a good place for our coaching clients to be coming from!

So how did we get here and what do we need to do about it? Well, Thomas stretched out thinking. Remember that? And coaching was growing, then. Then we lost Thomas. Since then, lots of coaches have tried to step into his shoes, but none of them are thinking like Thomas, yet. They're striving, instead of attracting and they're becoming less attractive, as a result.

It wouldn't hurt to go back to some of the old Thomas material, like Irresistable Attraction and place our faith in that. Only let's don't stop there. The world is still moving forward and Thomas can't keep leading us. Look for new voices and new ways of thinking. Look outside the coaching industry for inspiration. Watch what's going on in the world and notice where it's heading and where it's been. Coach the present and future, not the past. Start leading, yourself.

And stop trying so hard!

Most coaches come into the profession, because they're not BS artists. They care about truth and other values. How silly to train them to BS their potential clients.

If you want to actually attract clients, Fresh Thinking Rules.

Copyright, Julia Stewart, 2005 http://www.yourlifepart2.com