A Before-You-Build Key to Business/Online Success Most Coaches Don’t Do

Happy 2010, and I hope your holidays were joyous.

I also hope you’re taking advantage of that turn-of-the-year gusto.

In this post, I’m going to make a serious and important recommendation that can make big things happen for your coaching business this year.

In 2009, I spoke with a lot of coaches looking for website help. I had to turn away many because they had unclear marketing plans.

They weren’t clear on where to go to find clients, or what to say to them to get them excited about signing up for coaching.

Without these pieces, your website won’t be as useful in getting you clients.

One key to solving this marketing dilemma is to find a viable, profitable, reachable market. But you’ll need to do some thinking and researching to come up with one.

The the basic keys to solving this are to:

1. Look for groups of people. Look into the past and current groups you’ve associated with, especially where you’ve held a significant role.
2. Determine the challenges this group faces and what they are doing to overcome them.
3. Figure out how these people are gathering so you can reach them (read common magazines? real-life gathers? clients of a divorce attorney?).
4. Do this for several groups to see which may be appealing to you.
5. Think about the income levels of these groups and whether are they already spending money on the challenges they face. (a good sign).
6. Go offer your services to this group now to see if there are biters. You could get a few clients right away.
7. Once decided on your market, write compelling materials to speak to the group.
8. Get the word out and get clients signed up.

I also have a host of coaching niche articles I scurried from the web a while back. Shoot me an email if you want them. I’ll go dig up the link.

And, now for my strong suggestion …

I want you all to be aware, if you aren’t already, of a friend of mine Rhonda Hess – coaching business success strategist.

She’s got a program, How to Choose and Champion Your Ideal Coaching Market.

It’s here and I’m an affiliate:
http://bit.ly/7eCw3J

A blurb from the program:

In the Ideal Coaching  Market workshop, taught by mentor coach, Rhonda Hess, you will choose your perfect niche market, find out what they want to buy, and create client-winning language and offers — all of which is a huge relief from what you have been doing. When they see your coaching as an essential tool for their life success, people will be excited to hire you.

It’s a must to have a well-defined, reachable, profitable, target market lined up before you embark on developing any kind of materials(website too) to impress that market.

Check it out, sign up, get your market in gear, and then let’s get your web materials together and fill your business with clients.