How to Feel Comfortable Marketing Your Coaching Services (So You Can Grow Your Business)

Sharing is caring!

Shouldn’t you feel comfortable marketing your coaching services?

Do you find excuses to do anything rather than write a blog post, shoot a video, or record a podcast to let potential new clients know about how you empower clients?

Gotta say, as a life coach, trainer, or consultant this can be tough.

Isn’t it time you started writing *regular* emails to your list? Sigh. You’re not alone.

Maybe this is your dilemma:

• You’re happy creating content
• You love sharing tips to solve persistent-pesky-problems your clients are dealing with

But then it occurs to you after the creation is done—now you have to let the world know that you’ve got this terrific new piece of content.

I hear you because I’ve been there, and I promise you, it doesn’t have to be this way.

In this post I share 6 super-duper tips on how you can get a handle on your best way to market your life coaching services and feel comfortable doing so–even if you hate marketing. 

In case you hadn’t noticed: women entrepreneurs are less likely to use self-promotion to gain clients than their male counterparts.

Note: this post is an excerpt from my Amazon #1 bestseller, She Markets, A Guide for Women Entrepreneurs.

Women business owners feel squeamish about letting potential clients know about their products and services.

You won’t be surprised, women often resist taking opportunities to explain how they help potential clients solve problems.

Can you relate?

When you’re out in the world doing the vital work of marketing your business, you want to make the most of your time and effort, don’t you?

If you’d rather clean your closet AND your office in one day, than market your business, I’m glad you’re here!

Maybe you have some things in common with a woman who was my student; we’ll call her Emma.

Emma’s story may give you ideas for how to feel comfortable marketing your services.

Emma Realized She Had to Deal with Marketing

Emma is one of those stylish, super smart professional women that I’ve always admired. Her leadership style is calm, composed, and assured. She’s a trim brunette, energetic, and in excellent shape.

Could it be her ability to bike twice a week on top of parenting, marriage, running her business, and volunteering on a nonprofit board?

As a successful executive recruiter with top notch credentials, Emma had enjoyed steady business growth for four straight years. She’d built a robust referral network. She hadn’t really needed to pay attention to marketing herself. Then, as often happens in business, things shifted. Emma’s referral partners began to disappear. Formerly steady clients called less frequently.

They say change happens in instant. It did for Emma. She realized that she needed to put in place a marketing plan and both daily and weekly actions. Emma admitted to herself that she needed to deal with this ‘marketing’ thing. She knew the time had come for her to get a handle on her marketing, so she could once again attract a steady stream of clients and income.

In the past, when it came to promoting her services, Emma had focused on keeping her client referral relationships active. She had simply called and checked in with her referral partners frequently.

Emma suddenly saw clearly that she needed to think differently about marketing her business. After all, she wanted to increase her income so she could travel more with her family.

Has something like this ever happened to you?

As you can likely tell, Emma wasn’t thrilled about the idea of diving into marketing.

She felt most marketing approaches to be full of hype. She hadn’t found a marketing method that was a natural fit with her communication style.

However, Emma resolved to find a set of focused marketing actions that she was comfortable using.

She set a goal: to bring in a consistent flow of email subscribers, leads and prospects, she could convert into paying clients.

Do you have a similar set of goals for your business?

Emma attended one of my workshops and was encouraged that she could adopt a marketing style that felt natural to her. Afterward, we talked, and she signed up for my one-to-one Marketing Coaching.

Do You View Yourself as a ‘Marketer’?

Going into my program, Emma simply didn’t see herself as a marketer.

As a business owner, you juggle a long list of hats. Do you also call yourself a marketer?

I constantly meet women entrepreneurs, life and health coaches, and business owners who are experts at what they do. These women get stellar results for their clients and yet intensely dislike the idea of marketing their services.

Happily, during our work together Emma gained clarity about who exactly were the kinds of clients she wanted more of.

Also, she built a foundation for how to:

• Gain clarity about the kinds of clients she wanted to work with
• Tap into topics her perfect clients were deeply interested in
• Create content her audience of potential clients is hungry to learn about

At the end of my program, Emma was able to create a marketing structure that she could work with and felt good about.

You can develop a marketing structure that you’re comfortable with, too!

 

To Feel Comfortable Marketing, Create Content for Clients

A few months later, Emma told me that she was making even more progress. She now had a handle on her marketing!

She was creating content regularly, specifically for her ideal clients, and bringing in new business.

I tell my clients this all the time, and it’s true for you:

As a business owner, you don’t have to be a marketing expert. You just have to be an expert in exactly who your perfect client is.

Consider for a moment all of your skills talents, and experiences. You have fabulous skills, talents, and expertise, right?

Your clients love you. You just want more of them, right?

If you don’t invest your time to get clear about who you want to serve in your business, your perfect clients, it’s going to be tough to attract them.

Because as you’ve heard many times, if you’re marketing to everybody, you’re marketing to nobody.

So, let’s look at ways to feel comfortable about marketing yourself and your business. But first remind yourself of why grasping your own marketing structure is such a big deal.

3 Reasons to Put Your Heart + Soul into Marketing Your Services

You have a long list of motivations for growing your business, right? To help you along the way, here are 3 top reasons you want to put all of your energy into marketing so you can reach your ideal clients:

#1: Your income.

You started your business so you could serve clients, make a difference, and take care of yourself and your family, right?

Your deep-seated desire to help your clients is commendable, after all it’s probably a big part of why you started your business. However, you also deserve to feel comfortable marketing, so you can earn the income you desire.

My point is this: On top of serving clients, you want to ensure that you’re doing everything you can to bring in the steady income that you’ve set as your goal.

Marketing is a giant piece of the earning money puzzle when it’s your business. Because the more IDEAL clients you bring in, the more income you’ll earn.

Why is that?

Because, your ideal clients are the ones who get the best results from working with you. Or using your products, don’t they?

#2: Your ideal clients need your help.

Don’t ever forget, there are tens to thousands to millions of clients that you can serve better than anyone else in your field.

Consider all of the clients who really can best be helped by only you.

Make no mistake about it: your avatars, ideal clients, dream clients, members of your tribe (call them what you will) need you.

Think of it this way, it’s actually your obligation to make sure your ideal clients know who you are, how you help, and how to reach you. Don’t you agree?

#3: Unless you have a guaranteed source of referrals, marketing is your best friend for growing your business.

Wish I could tell you that tons of perfect clients will magically find your website, see your social media post, or discover your business card at the Chamber of Commerce bulletin board.

Sadly, that’s not how entrepreneurship works.

If it did, every business owner would be as happy as a four-year-old discovering an open bag of cookies within her reach.

So, let’s look at ways you can build a (comfortable) marketing structure for yourself so you can attract the clients you love working with.

6 Tips to Feel Comfortable Marketing Your Business

---

Authentic Marketing Tip #1: Write a detailed description of your perfect client.

I can hear you saying, “but Cynthia, I know my perfect client why do I need to write it down?”

My clients ask this all the time.

One of the big keys to successfully attracting the clients you want, is speaking their language.

• If you don’t know exactly who they are, how can you possibly talk so they will listen?
• I promise you that writing out a detailed dream client description isn’t as painful as it sounds.
• Pop open a Google doc, and do a brain dump of everything you know about your dream client

Your perfect client description can be in any format you want.

• You can write a story, anecdote, or snippet.
• If you’re not a writer, simply get down phrases describing the kinds of clients who are a dream for you to work with.
• No one sees your client description but you, and your team. It’s your resource, your secret sauce for knowing your ideal client as a complete human.

Authentic Marketing Tip #2: Refine your client description

Here’s the truth, creating your perfect client description is not a one-and-done exercise.

You will learn so much as you begin to document the rich details about the client you love serving.

Even better, each time you have a wonderful client and the project or program is completed, pull out your perfect client description. Add new insights you’ve just gained with your most recent ideal client.

Just so you know, massively successful entrepreneurs have told me that they spent up to seven months creating their first perfect client description. Another one has a 25-page notebook filled with facts, characteristics, anecdotes, and yummy details about her perfect client.

You can create this kind of a resource for your perfect client. You only have to begin.

Authentic Marketing Tip #3: Revisit your client description

Do this each time you create content, so you can refresh your view of your perfect client’s world.

When you spend a few minutes getting in touch with the one person you want to talk to when your content you’ll be inspired.

Your article, blog post, or video will speak more directly to him or her. I promise you.

Authentic Marketing Tip #4: Resist trying to talk to everybody

You’re not marketing to everyone who has the problems you solve, only to your specific dream clients. Create each piece of marketing content, as though you’re sitting talking to your perfect, ideal client.

This way, when your potential client discovers your message, blog post, video show, or podcast, they’ll think “Wow she gets me!” Why? Because you’re speaking her language, describing her problems, the way she would.

Authentic Marketing Tip #5: Be Prepared with this

Create a *Treasure Trove of Problems* List. What exactly is a “Treasure Trove of Problems” list? It’s a rich, chocolatey list capturing all of your perfect clients’ most urgent problems.

But first a warning: this is not a list of the common, run-of-the-mill problems in your industry.

1. This is not the problems list typically jotted down by the average business owner in your field.
2. This is a unique list of the specific problems YOUR perfect clients talk and obsess about, agonize over, and worry about constantly.
3. These are the pain points your ideal client wants to solve in the next 30 days.

Authentic Marketing Tip #6: This Helps You Feel Comfortable Marketing

Decide how often you will create marketing content for your perfect clients. It can be monthly or weekly. (Weekly is best.)

• Write down the topic you’ll discuss each time you create content for the next 6 weeks
• Now if you’re an entrepreneur who loves to plan, don’t go crazy here
• You want to see how your audience response to your topics. Start out with 6 or 8 weeks’ worth of subjects

After these few weeks of studying your audience’s responses, you can create more content on the topics your audience likes best.

Closing Thoughts

By tweaking your marketing structure and clarifying exactly who your perfect clients are, you can feel comfortable marketing. Happily, you can also take massive leaps toward realizing your income and growth goals.

I hope you’ll take inspiration from Emma’s story. Tap into everything you know about the kinds of clients you want more of when you create marketing content.

Because when you focus relentlessly on your ideal clients and their problems, you’ll be less concerned about how you feel about marketing your services. You’ll feel comfortable marketing your services after reminding yourself that you’re here to serve your ideal clients.

Sharing is caring!