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Building
a Super Coaching Business
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Turn Your List into a Community
I've been talking about "building a
list" but I want to take that another
step.
You may have heard the phrase
"relationship marketing" but I want to
take that another step as well.
Let's say that in "relationship
marketing" we are focused on building
relationships with individuals, and I'
believe that is important. But, in
"community marketing" we are focused on
developing a tight knit community of
followers (a list, but this time not
JUST A LIST of prospects, but a very
close knit group of people who
understand your value, who you've
actually helped go significantly ahead,
and who are avid followers. In other
words not "just a list" of people, and
not "just a few relationships" but a
group, a community that are begging for
more from you because you've helped
them.
You'll also see that as one moves from
the "free side" to the "fee paying side"
that others will follow.
Find Enough People to Help and
You'll Have Everything You Ever Wanted
in Life
I believe it was Zig Ziglar who said,
"You can have everything in life that
you ever wanted just by finding enough
people that you can to help." In this
case, I'm not talking about finding some
random people to help, I'm talking about
creating a close knit COMMUNITY of
people who either you have helped out
and brought together into a community,
OR you've reached into a COMMUNITY of
people and helped that WHOLE community.
In either case you have a
COMMUNITY of people that are BEGGING for
more from you, and who hear
from each other how great you are. It
sort of feeds on itself when the
community is chasing after you. It's
sort of that Golden Egg to Golden Goose
to Flock of Golden Geese that we have
talked about before that LEVERAGES your
results.
Keep in mind that this takes work,
sometimes a considerable amount. Chalk
it up to Marketing efforts.
Also assume that it takes
MOMENTUM before things happen.
Once you reach the tipping point, sort
of like walking across the fulcrum of a
teeter totter, at some point it will tip
the other direction. We have to put a
LOT of effort into this at first, but
once it gets moving you don't have to
put as much effort into it. If you
remember, my goal was to reach 3 times
my income while working less than 10
hours a week. Putting the effort in up
front to get it moving, and moving in
the right direction, is the key.
In my BNI group I've selected 1-2 new
people a week to help them with their
business. In BNI it's called "Giver's
Gain", but it fits Zig Ziglar's
statement above, "finding enough people
to help out and you'll have everything
you ever wanted."
In any case, I have called up a couple
of people a week, showed them how many
people are looking for them (using
Google keyword tool), and then using a
new tool I have (http://siteanalytics.compete.com/
) to show them how much traffic they
have in comparison to the top 10 people
on Google for their search words. The
differences are usually VERY DRAMATIC.
So, when I email them, or call them, it
might go something like this. This is one of
my BNI partners that I identified as a
Powerteam member, that's someone doing
business where I'd like to do business, OR
they are someone I'd like to do business
with. Either way works.
Hi _____. I know we haven't talked in a
while. I've been pretty busy working on
some of my own business goals, and now
that I've sort of hit some pretty
significant ones (I had shared the fact
with them a couple of days ago that I
had reached some nationwide search
engine positions) I'd like to share
those results with some of my friends at
BNI.
I was just looking at your website and
saw that there are 5,000 people a month
looking for what you do (and included a
Google keyword tool spreadsheet showing
all of the different words and numbers
that people are searching for), but when
I looked at your website I saw only 50
people a month hitting the website. .
How many calls a month do you get from
your website?
(They replied that they don't get ANY calls
from their website, which is quite typical
of 99% of all websites.)
Do you remember what Jenny said the
other day in the meeting . . . I mean
the fact that she went from 1 call a
YEAR to 72 within 2 weeks, and that
she's now the number one Mary Kay sales
rep in the Kansas City area?
I'd be glad to show you how to do that.
The reply was ecstatic. She told me that
they have two companies, one gets ZERO
calls from the internet, and the other
does have a position one on Google and
they've also turned on pay per clicks
and spending a ton of money, but still
gets NO CALLS.
So, I replied,
"That's not unusual on either count.
The one that's got a position one
AND has pay per clicks but isn't
getting conversions, well, that's
simple. If it's actually getting
that traffic, and not getting you
any calls, then the website
conversion isn't there. Although
it's typical for most websites to
get less than 0.1% conversion,
meaning that it would take 1,000
people seeing the website before
even one call, I actually shoot for
5% to 10% area, which would be 50 to
100 times more people than ever
before. And, it's possible that you
are getting much less than 0.1%.
Would you like to explore what I did for
Jenny, going from 1 call a year to 72 in
2 weeks? I make no promises, but let's
just see if that might work for you.
[Keep in mind, I'm developing her as a
strategic partner. She runs a business she
calls "invoice factoring."
Of course, most of you have never heard of
that, and 99% of the rest fo the world has
not either. So, on one hand, it's her
marketing message that's blocking her
acquiring tons of clients.
Her clients are DEFINITELY my clients.
Invoice factoring is one way of
financing a company, or leveraging cash
flow to a major level. When I had the
painting company we used it a couple of
times as we leveraged up to bigger
accounts. We had been doing average
sales of $3,000 to consumers,
residences. We got paid before we
started and would finish it in 3-5
days.
But when we started doing commercial
sites that were over $100,000 that was a
different animal. They were 60-90 day
invoices, and AFTER the job was
completed. Some jobs took a month or
more, one was 3 months. So, we had to
pay a staff of painters, buy paint and
supplies, all totaling 10's of thousands
of dollars. Basically our costs were
about 50% of the revenue generated, AND
we had to pay them all up front, but
wouldn't get paid for several months.
We could sell our accounts receivable to
someone like this company. For a 3% fee,
we'd get paid immediately upon signing the
contract and would be able to finance the
whole project, cash up front.
So, here's a company doing business with my
current target clients, small business
owners to mid sized business owners who, IF
I help them get what they want, they will
connect me with their whole list of clients.
I'm essentially feeding the Golden Goose so
that she'll share her Golden Eggs with me.
In any case, that's "relationship
marketing." But I want to turn this into a
whole community of Golden Geese, a FLOCK of
Golden Geese. It's got to be a close knit
community, not just a loose network.
Working with Your Local Small
Town (Community)
Moving on, another community - I've been
nurturing my local small suburb downtown
historic committee by, on occasion,
giving them free workshops on how to
market not only their individual
businesses, but how to market the entire
downtown area. I put an idea into their
head some time ago that other
communities around us have "created an
image" , a brand.
One community started with their
Applefest and has over 50,000 people
show up every day of the event. I've
been pushing that concept and some get
it, but the head of the committee didn't
get it quite that way. He did create
some special events, but not the BIG
event. In fact, he turned off some
events that were generating 10,000+
people for the city because he thought
ANOTHER concept would work better.
Of course, when I showed him that the
"art fair" he moved to only had 50
people a month looking for it, and the
one he gave up was generating up to
50,000 a month, and that we should be
growing it instead of shutting it down,
he wasn't ready to accept that. Well,
he's been relieved of duty, and I'm
talking to the committee about helping
them build their community further. In
this case, a little freebie could turn
into a year long commitment that is in
front of the whole downtown business
community.
Creating a Community with Your
Metropolitan Partner
And, a similar situation has occurred
for Kansas City. I get a call quarterly
(and could do it even more often than
that if I wanted to) for my marketing
workshops in partnership with the city
of Kansas City.
The city promotes this totally (no cost
for me), and I typically get 30+ showing
up, and several clients out of it. I got
a call on Friday asking me if I'd do
another one.
By the way, this is a great testimonial.
I'm the one the city relies on because I
get more attendance than anyone else
they work with. It's because of the
title, using the whole concept of
"attention getting" and "value based"
title. But, again, this is a community
of followers, and a Golden Goose who
provides a roomful of prospects (I'm a
little hesitant to call them Golden Eggs
as they tend to be smaller businesses,
but it does work. And now that I'm
promoting a $30 club, there aren't many
of these that couldn't afford $30, so I
expect to get 50% or more of the room
signing up for my club site.
Let's run those numbers: 30 peoplex50%=15
signing up, $30/monthx12 months-$360 each.
15x$360= $5,400 for a 2 hour presentation,
and I expect to turn 1-2 of those into
$500/month mastermind members, or an
additional $12,000. That turns the day into
$5,400+$12,000=$17,400 over the year for 2
hours in October.
Take that times 2 cities, and one of them is
talking a paid commitment.
Develop YOUR Community
Develop your community by helping as
many people as you can. But make sure
that you monetize that work. Charity is
just that, charity. There is a
difference between doing things for free
for a charity and doing things for free
as a part of your marketing. One problem
I see coaches doing all of the time is
that they do all of this stuff "for
free" and they neglect to collect on it.
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Don't go in with the idea that IF you
help out it will naturally come back. Go
in with the idea it will naturally come
back if you ESTABLISH how valuable you
are with those you work with, while
asking them afterwards, "How valuable
was that? DO you know anyone who'd like
to get something like what you got?"
And just watch it roll in.
To your Super Coaching Business
Alan Boyer
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-----Do You Have
A Question for Alan?
Drop me a line at
AlanBoyer@leaders-perspective.com
-- I will answer you
right away...and you
might see your question
answered in an upcoming
issue of "Building a
Super Coaching
Business."
About Alan
I have worked with some
of the great Super
Coaches all over the
world and discovered
their "tricks" to
multiplying a business.
When I have applied that
to my customers I have
found that EVEN GREATER
results are possible. My
main goal in life and
business is
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"I
will impact
everyone I
touch, even
if we touch
once and
briefly, to
find ways to
MULTIPLY
their life
and their
business to
levels they
have not
even been
able to
imagine....before
we met!
That's what
a SUPER
coach does!
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"I had been
told
repeatedly
by other
coaches that
direct mail
does not
work in
coaching,
yet I
enjoyed at
28%
response
rate from my
first
multi-mailing
campaign.
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70% Appointment setting rate
with $100M companies |
Dan
Light,
Dan
Light
Consulting |
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