The word ‘marketing’ is enough to strike terror into many hearts. Coaching Academy Marketing Tutor Hannah McNamara wants to spread the word that marketing is not only essential for your success as a coach – it is easy to master. You too can learn to love marketing! By Marie-Louise Cook.
Personal Success: Can you offer a way of reframing ‘marketing’ that will inspire, excite and alleviate that fear amongst coaches?
Hannah McNamara: ‘Marketing is just about communication – listening to what people want and then giving them the message that you have the solution. As coaches, we have to be good communicators. There’s a lot of listening involved in marketing and if you actually spend the time to listen to the people in your target market, they will tell you what they want.
‘Marketing is about relationship building so it has a lot in common with coaching. In fact, on the course that I run, we use a lot of coaching tools such as a Wheel of Marketing and mirroring and matching exercises to show what you learn as a coach is very good grounding for marketing yourself. All those rapport-building skills come into play when you meet somebody when you are networking or when you are up in front of somebody running a workshop. The tangible forms of marketing – websites, letters, emails, and advertising – are tools for creating rapport with people who haven’t met you yet. Everything that you do that doesn’t involve you being face-to-face with somebody is about creating that sense of rapport. You use the language and imagery that they would use. For example, one of my websites is for people in Professional Services and it looks pretty much like a law firm’s website would. It uses the type of language people in Professional Services use.’
So much emphasis is placed on finding new clients but how can coaches look after their existing clients?
Hannah McNamara: ‘I think people don’t do enough. Unless they keep in contact with their clients at least once a quarter to see how they are, the clients can feel they’ve been abandoned.
‘When I have the initial contact on the phone with potential clients and before we even get into a coaching arrangement one of the things I ask people is whether they have done any coaching before. For the people who have, sometimes the reason they are not going back to their previous coaches is that they have lost touch with them.’
Coaches are told giving presentations or writing books and articles will help to raise their profile but those two areas probably pose the greatest stumbling blocks for the majority of people. How can they overcome their fears?
Hannah McNamara: ‘People tend to avoid doing things they feel uncomfortable about and that holds them back. One of the ways to get past this is to stretch your comfort zones and just get on and do the thing you have been avoiding. I think a certain amount of perfectionism kicks in whenever people think about writing or public speaking but they have to accept that it is not going to be perfect the first time. They won’t deliver an Anthony Robbins-type presentation the first time they run a workshop and even if they did, there’s no guarantee it would be suitable for their audience. The more they do it, the more they will learn what works and what won’t work.
‘I made some big mistakes when I first began public speaking – I tried a workshop-type exercise – people working in pairs – with a group of about 100 people who were expecting a formal PowerPoint presentation. It didn’t work and I knew not to do it again.
‘Talking to people who are actually doing it can make a big difference. Find out what the realities are. People can be stuck by their perceptions of what it is going to be like. Some of the coaches I’ve mentored have had a big block about public speaking because they thought it involved standing up in front of a conference, on a platform, a lecturn in front of them, delivering a stuffy presentation. To overcome the block, some invited 10 friends into their living rooms, did a few coaching exercises with them and absolutely loved it. So, begin by doing it in a safe environment.
‘It’s the same with writing – just write. Write and write and write until you get a feel for it.
‘Go to ToastMasters and learn how to do public speaking and go on courses to learn how to write. Practising is key.’
How did you begin giving presentations?
Hannah McNamara: ‘I had a baptism of fire about 10 years ago when I was the Marketing Services Manager for an international womenswear and furniture retailer. I was in my office when the Marketing Director came running in and said, “I’ve got 200 store managers in the other room. I’m due on in 30 minutes and I can’t do it – I’m in with the Chief Executive. Can you cover for me?”
‘I gulped and said, “Okay, where are your slides?”
“There are no slides,” she said. “Just wing it.”
‘I had half an hour to prepare. I thought, “Okay, we’ve got Store Managers in the other room who don’t really understand what we do at Head Office.” So I grabbed my team – there was about five of them – and I said, “Right, drop everything – you’re coming with me.” They gave little introductions so the Store Managers actually got to ‘meet’ all the people that they spoke to on the phone and then I delivered a little presentation on what we were going to be doing in the next quarter. Luckily, it was something that I knew well so I didn’t need to have notes or anything.
‘It changed the relationship between the Store Managers and the Marketing Department because the Store Managers had actually ‘met’ us. They no longer saw us as faceless people who merely sent out pieces of paper and told them to do things.
‘That really built my confidence and I suppose that’s one of the reasons why I say just do it, get the practice.
‘In terms of giving presentations to build a coaching practice, I talked to organisations such as Business Link, my local Chamber of Commerce and the Federation of Small Business because I was targeting small business owners. I found they were crying out for people to come and give talks. They didn’t have a budget to pay me but I was happy to do it for nothing because it was a great marketing opportunity, getting in front of 20 or 30 people. It really boosted my profile. The marketing they do for events goes out to hundreds, if not thousands of people within the catchment area.
‘As you start to do more and more of these, people start to see you advertised all over the place and that builds up your profile and your credibility and it really does establish you as an expert.
‘If you are interested in giving presentations per se, then the Professional Speakers Association (PSA) is a good place to go to because there’s a lot of networking between speakers. People give each other help and advice. They are incredibly supportive. They are often approached by event organisers and asked, “Who do you know who can speak?”
‘The PSA has a mentoring programme so when you join, you can ask for a mentor. I got in touch with somebody who was operating in a similar market to me. We had a couple of coffee meetings and I was able to ask questions like, “How do you get started? What are the realities? How do I do this? How do I do that?” I picked up some fantastic tips. My approach is that it is as much about what I can do to help them as it is about what they can do to help me. I have gone out of my way to make introductions for the people who helped me. I think that’s what is so good about working in that environment because the networking is so strong. People help one another and they will repay favours.’
What advice do you have for someone who is struggling to attract new clients? What steps can they take now to boost business and reignite their enthusiasm?
Hannah McNamara: ‘I’d ask what happened to the clients they’d worked with either when they were training or since. All those clients have access to lots of other people that they could be referring on. So they should get in touch with the people that they’ve already coached and find out whether something has changed in their circumstances and if they want to be coached on something different or if there are people that they can think of that might benefit from sessions.
‘Also, they shouldn’t be afraid to talk to friends, family and business contacts and just say to them “I’m looking for more clients at the moment.” People are very willing to help but you have to ask and you have to be specific about how you would like them to help you. This is where getting practice in networking helps because it teaches you to become very specific about the types of clients you want people to refer to you. So, you might say, “These are the sorts of things I want you to listen out for. If somebody says they have this particular thing going on in their life, that’s the time to mention me and this is what I’d like you to say.” If you’re really struggling to get started, go to people you know already and ask for help. Offer some sample sessions just to get coaching because the more you are actually coaching the more your confidence builds and the more you can confidently talk about your abilities as a coach. If you’re spending all of your time sitting in a spare bedroom worrying, you are going to be anxious when you are talking to prospective new clients but if you are coaching a lot that sense of anxiety won’t be coming across in the way you present yourself. You will know that you get good results for people.
‘Sample sessions are a great way to help people to understand what you do even if they are never going to become your clients. We normally say don’t coach friends or family but my view is that for marketing purposes it’s okay to do a sample session with them so that they can talk to people they know about what it’s liked to be coached by you.’
In your book, Niche Marketing For Coaches (Thorogood, 2007) you make the case for niche coaching. Do you think it should be an organic process or should people deliberately work out a niche for themselves?
Hannah McNamara: ‘A bit of both. There’s a distinction between niche coaching and niche marketing. Niche coaching is about being a specific type of coach: a parent coach, a career coach, or a confidence coach, for example. The way I look at niching is much more about niche marketing - thinking about the types of people you want to be exposed to your message. You can decide the types of people you want to be coaching and still have the flexibility to coach them on anything that comes up. It is there where you will start to find where your areas of strength as a coach are. You might discover that one area is not quite your thing and you’d rather pass it onto somebody else.
‘The niche market that you choose shouldn’t be too specific in your early days of coaching and might just be “the people who live in my town and are able to afford my rates.” In this case, your marketing would be geared towards attracting the people who live in your town and done on a very local basis: networking and getting into the local paper, for example. As you start to attract people who are within that market, I think what you are good at as a coach will shine through and you will get people recommending their friends to you for coaching on certain topics or challenges that you have had successes with. It’s a bit of both – it is organic but it’s something that allows you to make a conscious decision on and go out there and put yourself in the public eye.’
How big should a target market be? Can a niche be too select and obscure?
Hannah McNamara ‘It depends how many clients you want to attract to your practice; how you want to structure your practice; and whether it is just you or whether you have other coaches working with you under your banner.
‘A niche market should be large enough and small enough so that you can create a profile for yourself and communicate regularly to the people in your market. It really is easier to be a big fish in a small pond. Niche marketing is about tailoring that marketing message to a very specific group of people and the more that people hear about you over and over again, the more that they will be coming to you as a coach.
‘I read some interesting statistics yesterday and it said 80% of sales are made after five or more contacts, yet 48% of people give up after the first contact, 25% give up after the second contact, 17% give up after the third and fourth contact and only 10% of people get to five contacts. They are the ones who are picking up the 80% of business that’s done after five or more points of contact. When you are looking for a market, look for a group of people who you are going to be able to communicate with on an ongoing basis. That five or more contacts might be talking to them, sending them an email, or writing articles that they can read. It’s all about building up trust. You have to gain people’s trust before you tell them how wonderful you are otherwise they’re not going to believe you.’
Are there simple marketing mistakes that coaches make that if corrected would make a huge difference to the results they achieve?
Hannah McNamara ‘People give up too soon. I’ve had experiences where I’ve been talking to someone about coaching and they’ve said, “No, I can’t do it right now” and then I probe a little bit deeper, ask coaching questions and they say things like, “I can’t really go for it now because I’ve just had a big bill to pay but next month I could probably afford it.” If I hadn’t probed a little bit deeper, I might have thought, “Oh well, they’ve said no, they’ll never want to speak to me again” when in actual fact, they were interested but it wasn’t the right time.
‘If someone takes the time to talk to you about coaching, there’s a fair chance they are interested. Be gently persistent with people, really try to understand and listen to them and keep the lines of communication open.
‘If a prospective client has talked to you about coaching and they have said “No” and then a couple of weeks later changed their mind, they are too embarrassed to ring you up and say they have changed their mind. It’s much easier to go to somebody else.
‘Keep the lines of communication open. Don’t give up after you’ve had that first conversation with them. There are things that you can do to alternate that process as well… you can have newsletters or email auto responders sending messages out so that people are hearing from you regularly.
‘People can make the mistake of going in too hard with the sell (this is something I did myself) or of trying to sell coaching as a concept – it’s a difficult buy from the client’s point of view. They don’t want to hear how the coaching process works or a vague notion of “achieving their goals” – they want to hear what they are actually going to get from it.
‘I see so many almost identical coaching websites with the same look and feel, explaining the concepts of coaching to the reader. That’s all very nice but did the person create the website to promote coaching generically or to get clients for themselves? If it is to get clients, they should be telling people what it is appropriate for in a way that’s relevant to them, what actual results their clients have achieved and why they should be chosen above anybody else. Put it in context and make it real.’
Is it possible to market effectively on a minimal budget?
Hannah McNamara: Given that marketing is about communication, picking up the telephone and talking to people doesn’t cost anything more than the price of the call. Many of the most powerful marketing methods for coaches – picking up the phone, networking, running workshops, or writing – don’t actually cost very much to do.
‘It’s when people get into the realms of “I have to have a very slick corporate identity, a glossy brochure, and an all-singing, all-dancing website” that it starts to spiral out of control. If people want a web presence, they can set up a free blog online. Search engines will find a blog much faster than they will find an all-singing, all-dancing website.
‘When you start as a coach one of the things you do have a lot of is time and you don’t necessarily have a lot of money, so use what you do have. Use the time to build relationships with people, go out and talk to people. Talk to other coaches who are practising in your area and find out what the market’s like.
‘Most coaches are quite happy to talk to other coaches and to give them a bit of advice based on their experience. When my clients have done that, they’ve often ended up working alongside the other coaches because they’ve discovered they are working in different niche markets and can refer clients to each other.’
Why do coaches fail when their passion and commitment to coaching is so strong?
Hannah McNamara: ‘Sometimes they’ve approached becoming a coach as a career change rather than as the start of a business. There’s a big difference between someone saying, “I want to be a coach” and “I want to have a coaching business”. If you are having a change of career, you are still in the “employed” mindset where it is someone else’s job to find you business. When people are in the frame of mind where they are saying, “I want to be a coach” that then gives them a reason not to do any marketing, selling, and bookkeeping, and not to take responsibility for all the other necessary parts of running a business.
‘When people decide, “I want to have a coaching business” they take responsibility for all the functions of running a business.
‘If people want coaching to pay their salary, they have to take responsibility for it. Something I do notice is that people will spend a lot of time and money investing in improving their coaching technique when they have no clients to use their skills on.’
In that situation, would it be better for those people to become an associate or be employed as a coach within an organisation?
Hannah McNamara ‘If their passion is to coach rather than to run a business then they should put themselves in an environment where what they get to do is coach. They can then do it all day, every day, and be paid for it. They don’t have to worry about chasing the money or bringing in the business because somebody else is doing that. It certainly is an option for people.
‘If you do decide that you want to be a successful independent coach, here’s some great news: all the skills that make you a good coach will make you a good marketer!
Active Listening
‘The ability to listen to your market and understand what they want to be coached on and the tangible results they want to achieve.
Matching and Mirroring
‘Once you understand your market, reflect back to them what they want to move towards or away from. Demonstrate that you understand and empathise and that you can help.
Goal Setting
‘You’d help your clients to break down their goals and work on them in bite-sized chunks, do the same thing with the goals for your coaching business. As Brian Tracy says, “There’s no such thing as unrealistic goals, just unrealistic deadlines.”
Modelling
‘There are many coaches making a very comfortable living from doing what they love and you can too. Seek out successfulcoaches and find out their marketing recipe – what works, what doesn’t, and how did they get where they are now?
Committing To Action
‘Feel the fear and do it anyway!’
Does location make a difference to a coach’s success? Is it necessary to be based in a city? Could someone be in a town or the countryside and still be successful?
Hannah McNamara: ‘It depends on the type of clients you want to work with. The huge explosion of the Internet means if you have a niche area, you could have clients from all over the world calling you for sessions.
‘It really depends too on the way you want to work. If you want to work over the phone then it really doesn’t matter where your clients are. If you want to do face-to-face then you will want to find clients in your local area so that you’re not spending too much time travelling.
‘There are advantages to living in a city and there are advantages to living in a town or village. Being in a city gives you access to a greater number of people but many of them are strangers to you. In a small environment like a town or village however, people know one another and it can be easier to get your name known quickly. Funnily enough though, some of the coaches I know who live in small towns and villages do much of their networking with local contacts through sites such as MySpace and Ecademy, something which flies in the face of the stereotypical view of meeting people at church, the school fete or in the local pub.’
How do you stay in contact with existing clients?
Hannah McNamara: ‘I have a newsletter that goes out bi-monthly. People think the aim of a newsletter is to attract new clients but I find it’s a very good way of keeping existing clients in the loop on what you’re doing and the successes you’ve had with other people. It might trigger something in their minds that they want some help with and it reminds them that you’re there if they have a friend who needs coaching.
‘Send people a personal email every few months that says, “Hello, how are you doing? Just wanted to check in with you and find out how you are getting on.” People will often write back saying, “Do you know what? I’ve been meaning to call you for weeks. Thanks for getting in touch.”
‘You have to strike a fine balance. There is a danger that you can push people away because you are contacting them too often. If you’re contacting them every other week trying to get them to book another session, it comes across as quite needy. A coach who has a busy practice wouldn’t need to be chasing the business that much.’
Should you ask existing clients for referrals?
Hannah McNamara: ‘I do. It’s difficult with the word “should” because it depends on the relationship you have with clients and how appropriate it is to ask them for referrals. If somebody is saying how much others have noticed they have changed, I say, “Well, if there’s somebody who wants some of what you’ve got, put them in touch and I’ll be happy to send them out some information and happy to have a no-obligation chat on the phone with them if they want to find out what coaching is about.” I do it so it is not seen as a hard sell.
‘I always send feedback forms at the end of a programme and I say that the way I build my business is through word-of-mouth and recommendation so if there’s anybody they know who might be interested in finding out more, put their details down and I’ll send them out an information pack. It does generate some referrals – it doesn’t always work but if you’re really pushing people for referrals all the time, it can become too much.’
FURTHER INFORMATION
To obtain a copy of Hannah McNamara’s book Niche Marketing For Coaches, visit www.marketinghelpforcoaches.com or www.hrmcoaching.com. For details of her one and two day Start Your Own Coaching Business workshops for The Coaching Academy, visit www.the-coaching-academy.com.
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