Some coaches I know have 2-5 clients, have a few people subscribing to their list every month and have 100-500 web site views every month. Of course they would like MORE – more clients, more subscribers and more web site visitors.

How can they go from 2-5 clients to 15-20 clients, to hundreds of people joining their list and to thousands of web site views every month?

Here are my thoughts on this:

First off, congratulations! If you have a few clients, people are joining your list every month and you have steady web site traffic, it looks like some of your marketing is working!

The next step is to track which marketing is working, because it is very important to know what is actually producing results. So my first question is: Are you tracking your efforts to find out EXACTLY which of your marketing efforts are bringing in the results?

If some efforts are already working, why not increase these efforts and see if they bring you more results? Marketing is not about creating breakthrough, award-winning campaigns. Marketing is about finding out what works for you and your practice and using what works to get MORE clients, subscribers and web site traffic.

My next recommendation is to streamline your marketing and create a marketing system that you use to move people around your marketing funnel. Create a system for getting people to your web site ==> getting them to subscribe to your newsletter ==> using your newsletter to offer them coaching and your other products.

You can do this by:

– Driving qualified traffic to your web site. Article marketing is great, but you need to use it consistently in order to get more web site traffic. I recommend my clients to submit at least 5 articles a month to article directories.

Other ways to drive traffic include search engine optimization, having your own blog and blogging on a consistent basis, participating in online networking where your target market networks and more.

– Once your get the traffic to your web site, make sure you can convert it into newsletter subscribers. Create a nice free gift that you can give away, such as a free report, audio recording, etc and promote it on EVERY page on your web site. Doing this will ensure that no matter where people have entered your web site, they can subscribe to your newsletter.

– Use your newsletter to promote your services and products. Now that you are adding subscribers think big about what they need, create products that they need and offer them to your subscribers.

As you are working through your online marketing strategy, see if you want to publish your newsletter more often. When you publish your newsletter every two weeks, or even weekly, you will be able to share more with your subscribers, get them to know you better and get them to buy your products and services.

Need more help? Check out more blog posts on list building:

– How To Use Your List To Get Clients

– Coaches, How Often Do You Send Out Your Newsletter?

– What To Do With Your Social Networking Traffic

More information on list building is available in the Grow Your List Home Study Course available at https://www.avocadoconsulting.com/rlinks/znews

Biana Babinsky

Linda Dessau has just written a book, The Customizable Style Guide for Coaches Who Write: Look Smarter, Write Faster and Get Better Results from Your Writing. Since I always talk about how coaches need to be able to write well to be able to market themselves, get clients and create products, I decided to interview Linda about the book and about why writing is so important for coaches. Here is my interview with Linda:

1. Linda, why did you decide to write this book?

There were a few reasons, Biana. I’ve heard from a lot of coaches over the years that they’re hesitant to write, or hesitant to publish their writing, because they’re worried it’s not good enough. I want to help them get over that, because I LOVE helping coaches polish up their writing. But if they can’t get over this hump we can’t get to this stage.

Another big reason was so that I would have a desktop resource for all of the things I was constantly looking up as I was editing. As I heard once in a seminar, a great editor doesn’t know everything, but she knows where to look to find the answers.

2. Could you please explain what a style guide is?

Sure! A style guide is basically a collection of writing rules and guidelines that you can refer back to when you’re writing anything for your business (including articles, emails, special reports, books and more).

3. Why do coaches need a style guide?

It will save you time and energy while you’re writing, because you’ll have a clear cut answer to the writing questions that come up. And if you’re like me, and the same question pops up over and over again, it’s guaranteed that you’ll handle it the same way you did the last time it came up. If you always refer back to the same style guide, your writing will have a consistent, professional appearance and that helps to reinforce your credibility and your brand. And Biana, you and I both know how important those things are for a successful coaching business.

4. What’s the one mistake you wish coaches would stop making in their writing?

Trying to say too much. The coaches I’ve worked with are so prolific and creative, and sometimes they don’t know where one article ends and the next one begins. When it comes to articles, book chapters or each section of a special report, try to make just one main point, and then support it with sub-points.

5. What did you learn about writing a book that you can pass along to your clients? What is your one recommendation to a coach that wants to write a book?

Here are a few key lessons I learned:

– Books can change a lot from beginning to end, so draft your outline and then make room for the book to become what it’s going to be.

– Talk about your writing process as often as you can, with people who will offer enthusiastic support.

– People are incredibly generous! My volunteer reviewers gave me such a valuable perspective as the eyes of my potential readers.

– Invest in the support people you need to get the best finished product– I worked with a coach, (Kathy Mallary), an editor (M. Lisa Forner) and a designer (Victoria Vinton).

6. Tell us more about the book: is it a book or e-book? Are there any bonuses included with the book?

This is a print book only; I really wanted coaches to use it as a desktop resource. There are online bonuses as well, available on an exclusive readers-only website. There’s a list of troublesome words and phrases to watch out for, writing tools such as a sales page generator, a template to create a customized style sheet, links to all of the resources in the book and updates and additions as they become available.

7. Who is this book aimed at?

The Style Guide was written exclusively for coaches, and the entire second half of the book is dedicated to mapping out the specific writing projects that coaches use the most. That being said, I noticed that the virtual assistants who reviewed it for me found it just as helpful. I’m sure most service professionals and other small business owners could relate these guidelines to their own writing needs.

Looking for more information about Linda’s book? You can learn more about it and get your own copy at The Customizable Style Guide for Coaches Who Write: Look Smarter, Write Faster and Get Better Results from Your Writing.

Yesterday, August 6th the blog tour kicked off in great fashion with Chris Dunmire at Creative Slush. Great start Chris!

Tomorrow, August 8th, the blog tour continues with Teresa Morrow with her own interview with Linda.

Are you having a hard time explaining what coaching is to potential clients? Many of my clients ask me how I describe what coaching to my own potential clients and connections. Every few weeks I have a client, who is a coach, ask me how I deal with explaining what coaching is to someone who I want to become a client.

Well, first of all, I do not explain what coaching is to my potential clients. And I don’t recommend that you do that either. It will take a lot of time, your potential clients will get confused, and most importantly of all, they are not interested in coaching.

Your potential clients are interested in what’s in it for them, in what you can do for them. They are interested in results they will achieve when working with you.

For example, at networking events, I tell people I network with that I help business owners get more clients for their business. This is short, very much to the point and makes the person interested right away. This is because I just told them how they can benefit from working with me.

Notice, I didn’t start explaining what coaching is, how it works, etc. What I want the person to remember is how they will benefit from working with me. That’s it.

Take the focus away from yourself and tell your potential customers who you work with and how you can help them. For example, if you are a parenting coach, people you are networking with would much rather hear that you “help parents get along with their teenagers” than hear a long explanation of what parent coaching involves.

Having a clear message about what you do that you can deliver to potential customers is going to make a huge difference to your business. When your potential clients hear about benefits they can get from working with you, they stop and listen. And if they like what they hear, they hire you.

My How To Create A Marketing Message That Will Get You Clients Audio Recording gives you the step-by-step process for creating a marketing message for your business. You can get it at https://www.marketingsalad.com/marketing-message.html

Biana Babinsky

I was asked on one of the calls I did recently about what steps I would recommend to take for a coach who wants to take their coaching from a part-time hobby to a full time profitable coaching business.

It takes time to re-adjust and what you need to re-adjust the most is your way of thinking about what you do. When you have a hobby, your priority may not be making money. When you run a business, your priority is to have a profitable business that brings in income.

You also need to re-adjust the way you think about marketing. Marketing is the cornerstone of your business and helps you bring in clients. If you are not marketing your business you will not be able to have a successful business, it’s that simple.

Here are some marketing tips to help you take your coaching from a hobby to a successful coaching business:

– The very first thing to do is to decide on a good target market for your business. Before you can bring in clients consistently, you need to decide on WHO these clients are. After all, if you do not know who your clients are, how are you going to bring them to your business?

Make a decision about who your target market is. Knowing your target market will help you make other decisions and will help you simplify your marketing. And we all want to simplify our marketing :)

– Decide on marketing techniques you’d like to use to market your coaching business. It is great if you want to use blogging, and social networking, and article marketing, and public speaking, and e-mail marketing to promote your business. However, don’t start using them all at once!

The best way to market your business is to pick one technique, master it, start using it on a regular basis and then move on to the next one.

And remember, you don’t have to use every marketing technique you have heard about. For example, I have clients who enjoy public speaking, who speak often and for whom public speaking is one of the most effective techniques for getting clients.

On the other hand, I have a client who says that she would never ever do public speaking, it’s just not for her. Her favorite marketing technique is blogging, she is good at it and she uses her blog to generate interest in her business.

Pick the techniques that you enjoy applying and you will be more successful with them.

– Have a marketing plan! Create a plan for bringing in more clients, marketing your business, etc. You are much more likely to take action if you create a plan and put it on paper.

Members of my online business mentoring program have access to thousands of dollars worth of resources on creating a marketing plan, picking a profitable target market and using online marketing techniques to promote their business. Get immediate access to all these resources by joining us at https://www.MarketingSalad.com

Biana Babinsky

One of the most popular questions I have been receiving this year from clients, colleagues and online friends (some of whom I met on social networks) has been Is Social Media A Fad?

I even had a discussion on this same subject at a non-business event a few months ago. One of the participants found out what I did for a living and we had a great discussion of social media, how it affects the way we do business and if it is here to stay.

As someone who has participated in social media and social networking online for the past fifteen years and recently taught a social networking teleseminar, I know that social media is not a fad. However, I can see why this question keeps coming up over and over again. Social media and social web sites have become the “it” things on line in the past 6-8 months, just like blogging did a few years ago. And because of their “it” status there have been many articles in mainstream publications about social media and how business owners use it for business development.

As a result of those articles, many people who have never used social media before decide to give social media a try. But since they are new to the social media scene, they are not sure how long social networking is going to stay around for. They do not want to spend their time on something that may just be a fad, so they are looking to make sure that social media and networking are here to stay.

And from what I have seen in my many years online, I can tell you that social media is here to stay. Social networking started as soon as people started using the Internet. I remember communicating on Bulletin Boards, then through mailing lists, then message boards. I started using social networking as soon as I got online. The very first social networking medium that I ran was a message board.

Since then I have joined and left countless mailing lists, message boards and social networking sites. While the media that I use changes with time (new networking sites, new mailing lists, etc), social networking stays. While we might not use the same social networking websites five or ten years from now, we will still be using social networking. Just like I used it fifteen years ago. And this is why social networking is not a fad and is here to stay.

More social networking articles:

– Getting Results From Social Media Sites

– What To Do With Your Social Networking Traffic

Biana Babinsky

P.S. What do you think? How do you use social networking?

After reading my my blog posts on list building, many coaches have asked me what comes next. Once you get some people on your list, how do you leverage your list to get clients, make money and improve your business?

Just like with using any other marketing technique, in order to get the best results from your newsletter, you need to create a plan to get clients, make money and get results with your newsletter list.

Here are some things to think about and include into your plan:

– You Need To Bring In More Subscribers Every Single Day. Your target customers subscribe to your list and they also unsubscribe. Your goal for your newsletter list is to have as many people as possible see your message and learn about your business. Therefore the more people you can attract to your list, the better.

– Publish Your Newsletter On A Regular Basis. Your subscribers will not do business with you and will not buy from you unless they hear from you. The only way they will know about your expertise and about what you have to offer is by reading your newsletter issues.

Research shows that people need to hear from you on average 7 times (sometimes many more!) to buy something from you.

If you want results from your newsletter, such as more clients and more money, you need to publish! Publish your newsletter on a regular basis with useful information that your subscribers want to know about AND promo’s of your own products and services. A win-win for everyone.

– Create Products In Different Price Ranges. While lots of people are interested in coaching, the vast majority of them will never become your one-on-one coaching clients.

Some can’t afford one-on-one services, others may be able to afford them, but are not at the stage where they can justify the money they are going to spend.

But many more people would be willing to pay for group coaching, ebook, audio and other products because they cost much less than one-on-one service packages.

Create your own products and offer them to your list – that way you are using your list to build passive income streams for your business.

In my Grow Your List Home Study Course I discuss how to use your list to get clients, make money and create passive income streams. Check it out at https://www.avocadoconsulting.com/rlinks/znews

How do you use your list to get clients?

Biana Babinsky

Lately, I have been hearing from many coaches and consultants who are experiencing a slowdown in their businesses. They are reporting to me that it became much harder to get one-on-one clients and that even product sales have slowed down.

There are many reasons for this to be happening. It could be that many potential clients are taking summer vacations instead of working. It could be that customers are concerned about gas prices and the economy and are trying to save money by not getting professional help. Or it could be the regular business cycle – there are many different reasons for a business slowdown.

I recommend that you do not concentrate on finding out why there is a slowdown. Rather, you should concentrate on how you can bring more clients to your business. Here is what I recommend:

– Review Or Create A Marketing Plan For Your Business. Summer is the best time to review your marketing plan. Are you accomplishing what you have set out to accomplish? Are you filling your marketing funnel? Are you marketing every day? Are some of your marketing strategies bringing more customers to your business than others?

A marketing plan review will help you streamline your business and bring in more clients.

If you do not have a marketing plan now is the best time to create one. Your marketing plan will help you organize your marketing actions and spend less time on marketing while getting better results. Your marketing plan is your map to getting clients and creating a successful business.

When business is slow the businesses who survive are the ones who can do more and better marketing in less time.

– Do More Of What’s Working. As you review your marketing, you will see that certain marketing actions bring in more potential customers than others. There is no reason to do things that only bring in a few customers. You want to find actions that bring in the bulk of clients and repeat these actions over and over again. So when you find something that is working for you and your business, do more of the same.

For example, if networking with your target market online brings in great results, increase your networking time or find additional places to network. When you keep doing what’s working, you get more clients, it’s that simple.

– Bring In More Prospects. In slow business times it helps to bring in more prospects to your business. It could be that in the past you were able to convert 1 out of 20 prospects into a customer. But now it could be that you are able to convert only 1 out of 30 prospects into a customers.

If you need to get 10 clients for your business, in the past you only needed to bring in 200 business prospects. In order to get the same 10 clients now you will need to bring in 300 prospects. You will be able to do that by using marketing strategies that will help you attract more prospects to your business.

The best way I found to bring more prospects to my business is by getting more targeted traffic to my web site. I will be discussing how to bring more of your perfect clients and prospects to your web site during this Thursday’s teleseminar, How To Get More Clients To Your Web Site. You can register for it at https://www.marketingsalad.com/clients.html

Biana Babinsky

Here is a conversation I’ve had with more business owners than I can count:

Business Owner: I created a great new product that I love, it is going to do great! I just need some help with getting the word out about it. Once people hear about it, this product will sell itself!

Me: That’s great, so you surveyed your target market and found out they everyone in your target market needs this product?

Business Owner: Hmmm, I didn’t survey anyone.

Me: Ok, so who is the target market for this product?

Business Owner: Everyone! This is a great product, and everyone needs it!

Me: So if you haven’t done any market research, have you created a marketing plan to promote this product?

Business Owner: Hmmm, no. But I think once I get the word out about this product everyone who hears about it will want to buy it.

…..

I have had these conversations with business owners too many times. The issue is that the business owners are so excited about the products they are creating, that the product creation takes up all of their time.

Marketing is forgotten about, or the business owners think that the product is so great that it will sell itself. The truth is, nothing sells itself. Behind every successful product there is a good marketing plan, good marketing people and lots of marketing and promotion.

So if you want to bring a product to the market and make it into a best-seller, here is what you should do:

– Find a target market for your product. And “everyone” is not a target market. A target market is a group of people who want, need and can afford your product.

– Do market research. It is not enough that you think that your product is going to sell great. Your target market has to want your product if you want to make money with it. Do research and survey your target market to find out if your product is going to sell.

– Spend the time and money on creating your product ONLY if there is market for it. Don’t spend time and money on creating something if you don’t know if it is going to sell. Only bring the product to market if there is enough demand for it.

– Create a marketing plan for the product BEFORE you actually create the actual product. If you want to make money with your product, marketing should be one of the first things you start doing. So create a marketing plan and start promoting your product BEFORE you even have the product for sale.

When I did an informal survey last year on why many business professionals are still not blogging, many business owners told me that they don’t feel they can find the time to commit to blogging.

One of the responses I heard was: “I don’t think I have another 40 hours/week to dedicate to blogging.”

Truth is, you don’t need to spend 40 hours/week on your blog. You don’t even need 15 hours/week.
If you organize your blogging and if you know what you want to talk about on your blog, blogging should not take that long. Here is how you should organize your blogging:

– Decide on how often you will blog. I blog 2-3 times a week and sometimes even less. You do not have to blog 3-5 times a day for your blog to be successful and bring in clients.

– Create a list of blog topics that you can use. It takes a while to come up with a good blog topic, so if you do not have any topics lined up, your blogging can take time. Instead of searching for
topics when you actually need them, create a running list of topics. Every time you read or hear something that may make a good blog topic, add it to the list.

When you need to actually write a blog post, go through the list and pick a topic you feel like writing about. Having a topic list will save you hours every time you need to write a new post.

– Re-print other people’s articles. If you like an article that someone else wrote, contact them and ask permission to post it on your blog. Posting someone else’s article won’t take very much time at all.

Don’t overdo this, as your blog readers would like to hear from you. But reprinting other people’s articles once in a while will help you build relationships, offer a different perspective to your readership and save time on blogging.

Many times my clients ask me how defining a target market has helped my business grow. I have been working with my target market for a long time. My target market are service professionals – coaches, consultants, virtual assistants and other service professionals. I help them get more web site traffic and more clients online.

Defining a target market has been extremely helpful and profitable for my business. Once I knew exactly who my target market was, it became much easier for me to find my target market online, network with it and bring my target market to my web site.

Here is some advice for you if you are struggling with defining a target market or a niche for your business:

A target market are people who need, want and can afford your products and services. Remember, all three have to hold — they people you want to work with have to need, want and be able to afford what you offer.

I have seen many business owners making a mistake by using two out of three — they find people who need and want, but can’t afford what they have, or they market to people who don’t necessarily want what they offer, even though they need it.

Another consideration I recommend looking into are the people you like to work with. Look at your past clients and see which clients would you like more of.

These are usually the clients who you enjoyed working with, who got results from working with you and who had no problem paying your fee. These are usually the clients you want more of. So start
looking at them — are they a part of a specific group?

Where can you meet more people from this group? How can you market to people from this group? Once you answer these questions, you will have a target market, and some ideas about marketing to it!

Need more help defining your target market? Get my How To Find A Profitable Target Market For Your Business Audio Recording at https://www.marketingsalad.com/niche.html

Biana Babinsky