by Joel Monk and Laurens van Aarle
The two most common mistakes that experienced and new coaches make are that they (1) try to sell coaching and (2) they try to sell coaching to everyone. They try to be all things, to all people. Not a good idea!
Whilst you may love waxing eloquently about coaching, the truth is … most people couldn’t care less!
What people want most is to solve their problems, to satisfy their desires and to realize their aspirations. If you can identify a particular group of people that you’d love to work with and identify their biggest unmet needs and their highest aspirations, then you can create clear marketing materials that describe specific services that your ideal clients will be motivated enough to pay you for.
To kick-start this process it’s positively essential to get clear on two things: your speciality or What you are best able to help your clients with, and your niche or Who is most suited and likely to hire you for your speciality.
Passion, experience and strength are 3 ingredients that will help you begin to shape your speciality:
- What are you most passionate about in life and naturally drawn to?
- What life experiences and expertise can you draw upon that would be of value to your ideal client?
- What skills and strengths do you have that you want to be using everyday?
And here are two crucial questions to help you get clear on your niche(s):
- Which group(s) of people would most benefit from your specialty, that you are drawn to work with and that can find the resources to hire your expertise?
- Where do they hang out and how can interact with them?
Answers may emerge straight away or you may need to spend a little time inquiring into them, but once you have your speciality and your niche(s) it is time for the next step.
Identify where you can find your ideal clients and engage them with curiosity as to what moves them, what is holding them back and how you could help them move forward. Create your coaching services and marketing around this and you have a much higher likelihood of creating a living doing what you love and having the impact you desire!
Yours in service,
Joel and Laurens
Laurens van Aarle and Joel Monk are the founders of Coaches Rising, an organization dedicated to empowering the world’s coaches so that they can have greater positive impact. One of the ways they do this is by bringing high-quality learning experiences to your doorstep. Visit the website www.coachesrising.com/iac to find out more.
IAC members get a $30 discount on the $127 Thrive! Mastery program (http://www.coachesrising.com/iac/).
