Stop Wasting Time/Money Getting Clients by Dave Crenshaw

Coaches are very giving, caring individuals.  It’s because of their willingness to share with others that they were attracted to coaching in the first place.  Unfortunately, they typically lack training and mastery in how to sell coaching itself.

This is a significant issue for most every coach I have ever met. They usually are very good at their skills in helping others and they are very poor in their ability to find and attract clients. Coaches are generally terribly unproductive in this category.

Here are the top 10 tips to help you be more productive in attracting quality clients:

1. Stop selling the need and start selling the want. The “need” is typically what you provide as the coach. But it’s not necessarily what your clients want. The two biggest wants that people have are more time and more money. Are you speaking directly to those needs?
2. Get to know your target market. If you don’t do this, you’ll be less productive because you’ll spread your efforts and your message too thin. Be clear about your target market and really get to know what they want.
3. Stop selling to people outside of your target market. Most people say that they’ll provide their services to “anyone who will pay.” They actually waste time and degrade their ability to help their target market when they do that. Get focused on working with a particular group.
4. Stop giving away coaching for free. I can’t say that strongly enough! This is probably the most common sales method used by coaches and it is very poor. Free consultations and free coaching sessions actually devalue your product. They are largely a waste of time. Typically this method attracts many people looking for a free handout and then afterward don’t want to pay the full amount of what you are worth.
5. Invest more in customer loyalty than in advertising. Advertising is money that you’re spending to get people to come in to talk to you. Customer loyalty is money that you invest in the customers that you already have to make them raving loyal fans. You get a much higher return of investment when you spend more money on your customers than when you spend money trying to attract new clients.
6. Stop playing zero-sum games. Zero-sum games are where you say something similar to, “If I spend money on this advertising method, all I need to get is one client or two clients to make up the money that I spent.” That is bad business. That means that you are spending a dollar and getting a dollar back. This is a zero-sum game. There is no increase. Instead, try to get at least a three times return on your investment when you invest money in acquiring clients.
7. Build relationships with referral sources. There are certain types of people who are more willing to refer clients to you than others. Cultivate ongoing relationships with them. Make sure that you have regular contact with them.
8. Be more truly interested in others. Dale Carnegie said, “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” That is especially true when it comes to networking and meeting people. It is less productive to focus on yourself and it is more productive to focus on the person who is talking to you.
9. Stop looking for “marks.” A “mark” is someone that you think that you can easily do business with. When you go into situations when you are meeting people and you’re looking for the mark, you are missing opportunities. You are missing opportunities to build relationships with potential referral sources. You are missing opportunities to do business with people who would be great clients but from outsides appearance don’t appear to be so. Truly, appearances can be deceiving.
10. Use a clearly defined sales system. Most people in sales use a “by the seat of their pants” sales system. When you go with the flow, you are defaulting to your prospects sale system. You are defaulting to the way that they make decisions. To succeed in sales, you must guide a buyer’s decision making by using a clearly defined system, step by step, to lead a prospect to conversion and being your long-term client.

I personally used these tips and more in the development of my coaching practice, and had clients lining up to work with me in a short amount of time.

© Dave Crenshaw has appeared in TIME magazine, SIRIUS XM Radio, Forbes, MSN Money, been interviewed on radio and TV stations across North America and is the President of the National Association of Productivity Coaches. His book, The Myth of Multitasking: How ‘Doing It All’ Gets Nothing Done, has been published in six languages and is a time management best seller. His second book, Invaluable: The Secret to Becoming Irreplaceable, is now available. Dave is the foremost expert in helping you increase the value of your time in an ever-changing market and has helped thousands of clients worldwide. If you are looking to get coaching clients in greater numbers, please visit http://www.ProductivityCoach.org.

And if you liked these tips then you will want the Get a Plan! Guide® to Networking. Networking is a far more important skill and practice than any of us can really comprehend. Years ago, it wasn’t necessary to know how to network because you knew who you knew – and that was all you needed to know. Today… that is far from true. Learn 19 Networking Need-to-Knows in this practical and specific guide which is part of the Get a Plan! Guides® series.