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Business
Builder
Everything you need to steer
your course toward success

Fuel Your Business Vision

Find Your Calling
Overcome Self-Saboteurs
BE the Coach in
Your Marketing

VOLUME 13 NUMBER 2
www.choice-online.com

Reproduced with the permission of choice Magazine, www.choice-online.com

Reproduced with the permission of choice Magazine, www.choice-online.com

QUANTUM BUSINESS MASTERY TRANSACTIONAL VS. TRANSFORMATIONAL COACHING FROM ESSENCE

2015-06-24 11:24 PM

Reproduced with the permission of choice Magazine, www.choice-online.com

Choose to steer your course toward success

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Welcome to our annual business

builder issue, supporting the coaching
profession, one coach at a time. This
robust issue gives the real take-home
advice on how to be the best coach,
attract your best clients, create a
profitable business, get more organized,
face your technology fears, where to
go for answers, best resources and
everything you need to know to have
a happy coaching life.

Reproduced with the permission of choice Magazine, www.choice-online.com

Business
is a Choice

VOLUME 13 NUMBER 2

2015-06-24 11:21 PM

Reproduced with the permission of choice Magazine, www.choice-online.com

From Marketing
Struggle to
Business Success
5 mindset shifts to get more clients
By Heather Markel, CPC, ACC

hether youre a new coach

or have been in business
for years, you work hard
to get new clients. For some this process is easy, but for others it feels like
an uphill battle. My work with various coaches and small business owners has allowed me to understand,
more and more, the key barriers to getting new clients. I would like to share
those with you, and offer you some
tips on how to make it easier to get
new clients and grow your business.

Problem 1
Your mojo doesnt match
your marketing
Mojo is what makes each of us
unique. Its our own brand of energy,
creativity, voice and mission. Its the
fire that motivates us to be a coach,
and its what distinguishes us from
everyone else. Many business owners
arent getting the clients they want
because theyre too busy blending in,

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When you go
to networking
events, connect
with people you
find interesting,
and follow up.
or theyre using marketing methods
that are out of alignment with who
they are. When this happens, the
clients dont bite, the business owner
gets frustrated and either gives up on
marketing or keeps going but shows
frustration, which turns off prospects.

Solution
Bring your personality
into your marketing
As a coach, you are your brand. Yet
I talk to countless coaches who dont
even have a photo of themselves
on their homepage, let alone any-

where on their website! Make yourself

visible in everything you do. Whether
its a photo or a video, if you dont have
at least one image of yourself on your
homepage, put that up now. Then, you
can begin to think about whether the
overall branding (logo, colors, messaging) of your business reflects who
you are now, and what youre about.
More importantly, consider whether
your marketing strategies allow you
to powerfully showcase your expertise, or just check a box.

Problem 2
Youre working
hard, but not focused
Another key problem I see is coaches
who want more clients, but instead of
focusing on revenue-generating activities, are trying to do every marketing
activity that exists. Even worse, theyre
writing a book and developing a program when they have only one client.
One of my favorite clients, before

Reproduced with the permission of choice Magazine, www.choice-online.com

Feature

VOLUME 13 NUMBER 2

2015-06-24 11:21 PM

Reproduced with the permission of choice Magazine, www.choice-online.com

to immediately begin sales discussions.

My aforementioned client stopped
paying her social media expert, and
after we realigned her focus on revenue generating activities, she got
six clients in four months. Focus is a
powerful business tool.

Problem 3

we started, was paying a social media

expert. I asked her how many clients
she was getting in exchange for paying this expert. Her answer: none.

Solution

Focus on revenue-generating
activities.
The key is to focus on activities that
have an immediate impact on getting
clients. A book might get you clients
when its done, in a year (or three), but
not today. Networking, calling and
speaking, however, put you in front of
your target audience and position you

Youre afraid to make phone

calls or ask for clients.
Instead of picking up the phone, you
rationalize why calling is too pushy
and invasive. You send emails, and
hope for referrals, but youre still not
making enough money to make ends
meet. Everyone is busy, and no one
reads all of their emails. So relying on
email alone is a guarantee that you
wont be heard or seen.

Solution
Ask for business.
I know that sales can conjure up
negative images like a used car sales-

man or a forceful makeup counter

employee making you feel insecure
about the bags under your eyes. Aggressive and manipulative are simply
methods. They do not have to be
your approach.
I love helping my clients tap into
their unique style of selling. At the
end of the day, our role as coaches is
to help our clients succeed, in the way
they define success. If you base the
start of any relationship on genuine
interest, it dramatically shifts the
selling process.
From now on, when you go to networking events, connect with people you find interesting, and follow
up. When you meet them (because
you called to set up the appointment), learn more about what they
do and look for the problems they
have. Offer solutions to those problems. Youll be amazed how offering
solutions can lead effortlessly to sales
conversations.
VOLUME 13 NUMBER 2

choice_v13n2_20_42_final.indd 37

Reproduced with the permission of choice Magazine, www.choice-online.com

Reproduced with the permission of choice Magazine, www.choice-online.com

Relying on
email alone is a
guarantee that
you wont be
heard or seen.

37

2015-06-24 11:21 PM

Reproduced with the permission of choice Magazine, www.choice-online.com

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Solution

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phone: (800) 326-9897 USA/Canada
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Emotional Intelligence
phone: (800) 456-3003 USA/Canada
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2015

38
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choice_v13n2_20_42_final.indd 38

T NER

Increase your value.

Its important to remember that your
clients are paying for a transformation, not an hour. Focus your pricing
discussions on the value you bring,
and the results each person should expect to walk away with, and how long
(months) that takes. Remember, for
every hour of coaching you provide,
you also do prep work in advance,
and follow-up activities afterwards.
Be willing to say no to prospects that
want to negotiate your prices instead
of a payment plan. Invest in a business coach to confront your own fear
of investing in your success, so you
can be better positioned to handle
price objections.

Problem 5
You dont
have a money plan.
You say you have a business, but you
have no idea of your income and expenses. Money is a moving target, and
though you know youd like to make
$100,000 a year, you havent considered what that means to your business strategy, so it remains a number
you never obtain.

EMIUM

AR

You link your fees to time

rather than value.
You can be great at asking for clients,
but when it comes to asking for money,
you choke. Worse yet, when you state
prices by the hour, you open the door
to a negotiation.
That causes you to lower your rates
to the point that you show up to sessions feeling devalued. This ultimately
impacts your performance and causes
your clients to stop showing up to
sessions because they arent receiving
your best.

Solution
Track and
target your money.
Waveapps and QuickBooks are two
great resources to track your money. If
youre not already using one, start today. At the very least, take out a piece
of paper right now. On that piece of
paper, write down how much money
you want to earn from coaching in the
next 12 months. Divide that number
by 12. You now have your monthly
revenue target.
Now, think about how much you
charge for your services. Write down
how many paying clients you need
to reach your monthly money target.
Using the $100,000 example above,
that would be $8,333 a month. If you

The key is to
focus on activities
that have an
immediate impact
on getting clients.
charge $500 per month, youd need 16
clients every month to hit that target.
Now you can begin to understand how
to develop a strategy to get those clients, or shift your mindset to do something radical, like raising your prices.
Owning a business takes work,
theres no way around that. But if you
align that work with your personality,
and take focused action towards your
goals, there is no reason you cant get
more clients and have a blossoming
business.

Resources:
Waveappps www.waveapps.com
QuickBooks www.quickbooks.com

Reproduced with the permission of choice Magazine, www.choice-online.com

Problem 4

VOLUME 13 NUMBER 2
2015-06-03 12:48 PM

2015-06-24 11:21 PM