Coaching is an extremely rewarding profession on so many levels, and it’s also one of the fastest growing industries in the world. Through this sequence of short videos, I’m going to teach you the key fundamentals you need to know to get started as a coach, and to create a fun and thriving coaching practice that’s in perfect alignment with who you are, what you value, and what you most want to contribute to others.
The next step in teaching you everything you need to know to become a successful life coach has to do with a subject that you won’t find talked about a whole lot within this industry, because it deals directly with what you could call “the dark side” of being a life coach.
And yet, this one, rarely talked about component is the reason why some coaches enjoy a thriving practice that provides them freedom and fulfillment (as well as multiple income streams) and why others struggle to find a single client. Your success as a coach will hinge on your ability to embrace this next topic, and that is: learning how to effectively market your services.
I can tell you with absolute certainty that marketing is a critical aspect to you realizing the success you desire – both as a professional coach, and in your personal life as well.
Now, I realize that marketing your coaching services and creating a fulfilling personal life may seem entirely unrelated, so in this short video segment, I am going to re-define the concept of marketing for you in a way that you probably haven’t thought of before.
To begin, I’d like you to consider that the act of marketing yourself and your services is actually an expression of your self-worth. It’s a direct reflection of how much you love and value yourself and the contribution you make to others. And to the degree that you are comfortable with and willing to unabashedly let people know who you are and what you can provide is an indication of how open you are – or how closed off you are – to receiving abundance in all forms. This includes not just an abundance of income, but also an abundance of friends, of love, of ease…
As I said a moment ago, in order to understand the concept of marketing in these broader terms, the word “marketing” itself needs an expanded definition.
So the next thing I’d like you to consider is that most traditional marketing approaches are based on a mindset in lack: We perceive some deficiency – a shortage of clients, or a lack of opportunity, or of money – so we try to identify some source outside ourselves that we believe can fill that lack. And bottom line, this tactic never works, because people can perceive neediness, and they can feel when we acting from a place of insufficiency.
I’m sure you have been on the receiving end of a sales ploy where you felt as though someone else is trying to convince you or coerce you into something. So, you know from personal experience that not only does it feels gross, but it evokes major resistance with you toward the person trying to coerce you.
I bring this up, because you could be an incredibly gifted coach, and you could be speaking with someone who is actively looking for exactly what you have to offer, but if you are coming from a place of lack – either perceiving lack within yourself or lack within your client – they will instinctively recoil. Why? Because in that moment, you’re not in resonance with a vibration of offering; of giving the value you know you can give. You’re in a vibration of insufficiency, lack, and need. And from that place, you truly have nothing to give.
Because I know how essential marketing is to creating a successful coaching practice – and because, as a former pharmaceutical sales rep, I was exposed to so many approaches that backfired and produced the opposite of the intended effect – I have included an entire section on marketing in the yearlong certification program I offer through the QSCA. As a result, my coaches develop mastery in a radically different approach to marketing that I call “magnetic,” or attraction-based, marketing.
Although it flies in the face of the traditional “shotgun” tactics used to target as many potential clients as possible with a single brochure or email blast, magnetic marketing t ensures that the clients you attract are genuinely a fit for and will benefit from what you have to offer – and that you are a genuine fit for what they need.
I teach my coaches to magnetize – rather than repel – their ideal clients by creating a climate around themselves that is entirely focused on the value they can provide. I teach them that whenever they talk to, think about or interact with potential clients, to see them as though they are already living the success they desire, in whatever areas of their lives they are seeking to improve.
Have you ever been in the presence of someone who you just wanted to be your best self around? There is something about the way this person interacts with you; the way they look at you and the esteem they hold you in that just inspires you to want to do things for them – not out of obligation, but surely out of your own genuine desire?
This is the power of seeing another person through the eyes of possibility, rather than through the eyes that something is wrong with them that needs to be fixed. When we hold someone in their highest light, they become irresistibly attracted to us, and they instinctively rise to match our expectation.
I’ve seen so many coaches fall into the trap of thinking that in order to sign a new client they first have to highlight all the things the client wants to change about him or herself, and then convince them that their coaching method holds the secret to that change. But what happens when we look at someone through the eyes of “what’s wrong” is that they feel demoralized and defeated, not inspired to become their best self.
Looking through the eyes of possibility takes training, and it takes lots of practice. It’s a way of viewing those around us – prospective clients as well as friends, loved ones and co-workers – from the knowing that they already have all the answers they need within them. It’s having faith that there is a natural process of evolution that is at work in their lives and in all of our lives. And although they may be coming to us with an issue or a problem, there is a solution that is ready to reveal itself to them, and the path to that resolution unfolds naturally and effortlessly once they become open to receiving it.
What prospective clients are really looking for is not someone to offer guidance or give them advice, but someone who can guide them back to the source of their own inner wisdom.
Beloved poet Walt Whitman must have understood the power of magnetic marketing when he said, nearly a hundred years ago, “We convince by our presence.” This is the essence of becoming wildly successful as a coach, and in every other aspect of your life as well.
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