Life Coaches: Why It’s Super Important to Know Your Clients
Here’s why it’s super important to know your clients: What if you didn’t have to struggle to create content that engages your coaching clients?
Wish you had a better handle on what content your clients are interested in?
You’re not alone! Truth is, traditional marketing doesn’t teach you how to understand what content your specific clients want to engage with. While they are great at teaching you skills like how to be a good listener, coaching programs don’t show you how to engage the clients who are interested in what you offer.
So no surprise, it makes your job of engaging with (and bringing in) the right clients a bit more complex, doesn’t it?
As a marketing coach, I relentlessly explain that it’s so super important to know your clients, it’s truly an ongoing project. Understanding the rich details about your perfect, dream clients is worth your time for a boatload of reasons. For starters, you deserve to fill your calendar with clients, customers, or students who…
- You love serving
- Are interested in what you offer
- Get amazing results because they implement your training and coaching
- Don’t quibble about your pricing
- Collaborate with you as you teach, serve, or coach them
Let’s set you up to have more of these awesome folks as paying clients, shall we?
Today, I’m sharing a story about a business owner we’ll call Chad, so you can learn from his example. Why a story about a guy entrepreneur?
Because for the first several years of my business I consulted about marketing and content strategy to small business owners and founders, including men, like Chad. Later, I began focusing solely on mentoring and coaching women entrepreneurs, coaches, and solopreneurs. (My story is here if you’d like to read about why I pivoted.)
Note: this post is adapted from “Meet Your Ideal Client”, Chapter 3 of my Amazon #1 bestselling book: She Markets, A Guide for Women Entrepreneurs.
Chad was a wildly successful real estate finance expert with a charismatic personality. He had a gift for storytelling and engaging anyone on any topic. This was especially true when it came to what he did best: finding properties to develop and convert into money-printing machines for his clients.
He transformed hard-working, real estate novices into wealthy investors. Chad’s clients included people with 9-to-5 jobs and small business owners. His clients regularly quit their day jobs. Not only that, some closed their businesses to do whatever they loved after working with Chad.
For years, he’d been using direct mail, purchasing mailing lists, and buying print advertising to generate leads, prospects, and clients.
Then the Internet and email marketing got big. So did his competition. Suddenly, Chad’s tried-and-true methods for bringing in clients screeched to a halt.
When I began working with Chad, I was struck by how well he knew his ideal client. While he didn’t use that specific’marketing term,’ he could elaborate on the type of person who became a successful real estate investor through his work.
Step #1 to Create Content That Converts: Start with Your Ideal Client
Grab The 5-Step Client Clarity Guide
Inside, you’ll discover:
Because your ideal client backstory can’t just be one line on a sticky note you keep on your desk.
Start calling in more dream clients with your expert content.
By signing up, you agree to this website’s privacy policy and terms and conditions. We promise we won’t send you spam. You’re welcome to unsubscribe at any time.
Chad’s best clients did this:
- Followed his proven wisdom
- Implemented his property selection and development techniques—fully
- Called him for advice whenever they felt unsure of an investment decision
As I got to know Chad, a couple of barriers to his business growth were clear. In addition to the reality that direct mail was losing its effectiveness and the increasing clout of his competition, Chad had to spend a ton of time screening cold inquires. This involved at least four weeks on the phone during a direct mail campaign.
As expert as he was at qualifying responses to the direct mail, he still had to, well, spend time qualifying. He said, “I hate my phone for a month after a direct letter goes out.”
Ask your best clients this
Here’s what Chad and I did. To be clear, he was reluctant, he didn’t think we’d discover anything new. But as he said, he was sick of his phone.
You, too, can take this approach.
By asking loyal clients for feedback, you’ll discover client-generating ideas and engagement tactics you hadn’t considered.
That way, you can bring in more people just like them.
[click_to_tweet tweet=”Ask your loyal clients for input. You’ll discover client-generating ideas and engagement tactics you hadn’t considered. That way, you can bring in more people just like them.” quote=”Ask your loyal clients for input. You’ll discover client-generating ideas and engagement tactics you hadn’t considered. That way, you can bring in more people just like them.” theme=”style5″]
So, we talked to Chad’s favorite clients for new ideas about generating leads for him.
Guess what, it took us no time at all to uncover ideas Chad had never considered.
The aha insights started right away. The first of his favorite clients told me that there were at least six coworkers at her office who had the same retirement savings dilemma: their savings were too small, and they were too close to retirement to build them up.
When I asked Chad’s charming, chatty client, “What is the best way to introduce your coworkers to Chad?” she said, “Let’s have Chad drop by my house one evening. I’ll invite them over and Chad can talk with them about investing with him, like I did.”
Boom! Chad did just that. After the first evening “chat with Chad,” he had enough new business to carry him for the next four months.
The best news, the event was low-key, no pressure, no PowerPoint, and no selling. Because it was a friendly environment, Chad was simply himself and these like-minded friends of his happy client raised their hands and quickly became prospects and then clients.
As an added bonus, Chad’s original client was a strong, positive influence. After all, she had so much confidence in him she had invited her friends/coworkers to her house to meet him.
Now that you get why it’s important to know your clients, do this
Chad’s results got even better.
Another client we interviewed decided to throw an afternoon barbecue. As a result, they invited 20 friends with whom Chad could share his investing wisdom. Guess what, that burgers-and-beer gathering netted seven months’ worth of new clients.
After that, casual get-togethers with his clients and their friends became a permanent part of Chad’s business development efforts. What’s more, he eliminated direct mail campaigns for good.
For Chad, it turned out to be important to know his client, even better than he thought he knew them.
Tell me, are your wheels spinning? Can you think of a couple of fave clients you can talk to for fresh ideas?
Your next best steps to know your clients
If I haven’t said it enough, it’s super important to know your clients, better than anyone else in your industry.
They say, if you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Think about it, does Chad’s story give you ideas for questions you can ask your best clients? Your practice clients? Have you coached or served family members?
Perhaps you’d like to learn something different from your clients than Chad does. How can you use your past clients as sounding boards to help you come up with new client attraction strategies to test?
Want to better understand your clients? Take these 3 actions.
Action #1) Choose your *one* dream client.
You may have heard this marketing axiom before: if you’re talking to EVERYONE you’re talking to NO ONE. My best recommendation to you is to select one specific client you want to serve. The good news, you can always pivot later. Your best strategic, business-growth move is to start with one dream client.
That way, all of your content, your conversations, and your marketing to bring in clients are focused on the one person you want to serve. Happily, this is also the client who is interested in your programs and services.
If you’d like more info about choosing your dream client and creating content for them, pop over to this post.
Action #2) Be Nancy Drew.
Because it’s important to know your clients, your top priority is to understand what content to post that your clients are most interested in.
Investigate your clients’ biggest pain points because those are the problems they’re happy to pay to get help solving. Also, those pesky problems are exactly what you want to create content about. To uncover your clients’ urgent problems…
- Replay conversations you’ve had with clients / practice clients
- Discover what topics they post about online
- Learn what experts they follow
- Have conversations with your dream clients to ask about their top concerns
Brainstorm / journal content ideas about the issues that the clients you want to serve are facing. What specific content can you create and share, to capture the attention of more of your dream clients?
Haven’t had many paying clients yet? Consider your practice clients as well as the family and friends you’ve worked with or coached.
You’ll find more ideas about engaging with your dream clients using your content in this post, click below:
Action #3) Set time on your calendar to do this
Now that you believe it’s important to know your clients, it’s time to get into action:
- Schedule time on your calendar to create fresh blog posts (podcasts, articles) and post them on your website
- Select 1 or 2 social media sites where your dream clients are active
- Decide when you’ll go online to share your content and interact with future clients
- Since you’re onboard that it’s important to know your clients, invest time to understand what they say and share online
- How can you use your new knowledge to craft even better content that your clients search for?
I wish you a million new insights as you discover who your ideal clients are and where and how to find more of them!
~ Cynthia
What if you could finally create content consistently?
If creating your marketing content has felt like a chore, a time-suck, or a massive mystery, you may have given up on content entirely.
But the truth is:
Content is key to attracting ideal clients and filling your programs. So don’t give up!
If your content ideas are buried in your beautiful brain, you want a process to help your words flow.
You want specific actions to implement so that the content you create stands out to your dream clients.
When you schedule a free Clarity Call, together, we’ll uncover your personalized marketing content actions. That way you can impact more clients. Click below to set up your FREE Clarity Call.