It can be hard for coaches not to get drawn in by the ads on their Facebook feed. They create the impression that your mission is to become an online marketer. That you need to learn how to create Facebook ads and to do search engine optimization. That you need to create beautiful websites and grand logos. So coaches hire branding and marketing experts. And they spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars learning how to reach out to absolute strangers. 

And they wonder why they get no clients.

Coaches spend up to 90% of their time reaching out to strangers. This is why they struggle to create clients.

Every high-performing, high-fee client was created in a relationship.

If you want clients, wake up every morning and ask yourself the question, “Who can I serve?”

Get genuinely curious about everyone you spend time with. Your sister-in-law, your former boss, the members of the mastermind group you are in… Not because you are trying to “turn them” into clients. You are not.

Serve people powerfully and you will build your coaching skills. Serve people powerfully and you will create stories and testimonials. Serve people powerfully and some of them will make great referrals and some of them will become paying clients. 

Be insanely curious about people. And offer to help them. Now that’s an interesting marketing plan. 

When is it time for 10s?

A few days ago, I wrote about the importance of filtering for your 8, 9 and 10 out of 10 clients.

Someone asked me what to do if they don’t yet know how to distinguish their dream clients. They are still building their practice and they want to coach a lot of people to improve their coaching skills. 

They asked if it was ok not to filter their clients so strongly.

My friend and co-author, Steve Chandler used to joke that in the early days of his coaching practice, he had only two criteria for a client:

1. They had a checkbook. 
2. They were alive. 

And #2 was optional! 😂

Building a coaching practice, one powerful conversation at a time can sometimes be a slow business. 

You have to do what Steve calls, “the blue-collar work of coaching…”

Connect. Invite. Create. Propose. 

One. Conversation. At. A. Time. 

It’s slow. But it compounds. 

It’s hard for the human brain to comprehend compounding. 

Compounding means that if you get just 1% better each day for a year, you’ll end up 37 times better by the time you’re done. 

(Have you ever been in debt and paid it off? I have. It’s very painful and slow at the start. I was once overwhelmed by $100,000 in credit card debt and I paid it off using a technique called the debt-snowball method.

It’s a strategy where you pay off the credit card with the smallest balance first, while paying the minimum payment on larger debts. 

You gain momentum as you knock out each balance. You build your confidence as each credit card is paid off. When the smallest debt is paid in full, you roll the money you were paying on that debt into the next smallest balance.)

The Prosperous Coach Approach can feel like this, too. 

Uncomfortably slow. 

But it works. 

You build confidence. 

And you build momentum. 

One tiny step at a time. 

One powerful conversation at a time.

Here’s the paradox

I’ve written for years about how to build your business one conversation at a time. These days, I often write articles for people in my community who’ve already mastered the process but want to continue to up their game. That’s the purpose of filtering out your 9.9s for your 10s. 

You can’t turn away 9.9s, in order to create 10 out of 10 clients, if you need to make some cash, or to pay the mortgage. 

You don’t need to say NO to the 7 out of 10s at the beginning of your coaching career. You may not even know what a 7 client feels like. In fact, at the beginning of your career, your singular mission is to Coach, Coach, Coachity Coach!

You can—and should turn away—9.9s for three reasons:

1. When you want to uplevel for a new caliber of client. Then you can turn away the 9.9s. 
2. When your coaching business is oversubscribed… When you have a successful business or a waiting list of clients. Then you can turn away the 9.9s. 
3. When you don’t need the money… Many of my clients transition into coaching after success in another career. You don’t “need” a client when you have spent years building up savings, investments or passive income. Then you can turn away the 9.9s. 

Where are you in your coaching practice? Are you in the early days and coach, coach, coachity coaching? Are you filtering out your 7s? Are you upleveling your clients? Or is it time to distinguish your 9.9s from your 10s?

Love. Rich