Something very uncomfortable came my way this morning and I’ve sat with it for a couple of hours. I decided that I’ll write this article, mostly because I want to share it with the coach in question.
I received an univited DM this morning, from a coach. This is what it said:
Now, let me be clear. I don’t know this coach. We are first connections on LinkedIn, but I am not aware that I’ve seen any content of theirs.
So, out of the blue, this coach said that they’ve endorsed my top skills (honestly, I had to go and see what they are, so long is it since I took any notice of this on LinkedIn), and would I now endorse theirs. They tell me that the more endorsements we have, the more LinkedIn will ‘promote my profile/business’.
Magical Thinking
Man, wouldn’t that be great?
If all we had to do was get strangers to endorse us and then – abracadabra – all the clients we need would fall from the sky because LinkedIn was promoting our businesses!
I have no idea where these weird ideas and magical thinking come from. If all it took was for a bunch of strangers to endorse us, there would be a company who sold endorsements to coaches for a fee (I bet there is a company that exists now I’ve written that! Maybe what’s where this coach got the idea from…).
Unethical Behaviour
I was really taken aback by this request. Why would I do this? Why would they do this? Where have they got the idea that lying on LinkedIn is a good idea? That faking endorsements is a good idea?
This was my reply:
And now I’m feeling weird about it.
How have we, as an ethical profession, got so mixed up in our thinking that we believe this is ok? I mean…. what?? Honestly, I’m speechless, which for those who know me, know how very unusual that is.
What Business Building REALLY Looks Like
Building a coaching business takes an awful lot more than the endorsement of strangers on LinkedIn. If it was a simple as fake endorsements, then the number of coaches who succeed in building businesses would be massively higher than it is.
This is what you need to do to build a coaching business:
- Accept that you don’t understand how client acquisition works. For some this is immediate, for others it takes a long time. These others need to try all the things that they believe to be good client acquisition techniques – and fail – before they accept that maybe they need help.
- Accept that client acquisition skills are a full 50% of the skills you need to build a coaching business, and they are not innate skills. We have worked with coaches with degrees and entire careers in marketing who have said I know how to market someone else’s product or service, but how do I apply this to me? Honestly that should tell you everything you need to know about client acquisition for coaches
- Commit to learning ethical client acquisition skills from a reputable provider. What I mean by that is that if someone is promising, or worse, guaranteeing outlandish results, treat them with caution. The honest ones will be telling you that there’s lots of work to be done, not offering you a magic silver bullet.
The Ego Trap
I refer to #1 in the above list as the ego trap and it’s a very sticky trap indeed. Coaches are highly intelligent humans. We have often had tremendous success in our professional careers and then moved to coaching. We are used to being able to improvise professionally, and that improvisation bear fruit. However, these improvisations are always within our sphere of knowledge and skill. Marketing is rarely in that sphere – and as I said, even when it is, they come to us anyway.
It can be very hard indeed to admit that we’re beginners, when we are used to being the expert in the room. So many of our coaches have said why oh why didn’t I come to you earlier? They hung on – for years in some cases – trying everything they could think of and believing that if they could just work out the next thing, they’d be sorted, but that didn’t happen.
Many of our coaches have spend large sums of money with a ‘business coach’ or other person who promised them clients. Some of them have spent really large sums of money with some guru or other. What they were taught was ineffectual and it left them feeling foolish. After all, who wants to think they spent money on something that turned out to be a waste of time? What these ‘wastes of time’ had in common was that they weren’t given a process, with actionable steps to take that leads to clients.
What To Do Instead
I’m going to suggest that you speak with me, or one of my team at The Coaching Revolution – of course I am.
Our credibility as providers of client acquisition training comes not only from our 8 years in business, but also from the fact that the mentors teaching our programmes were our clients once. They all learned, implemented, succeeded and are still rocking their businesses and mentor as associates for me. If they are not actively marketing and running businesses, they don’t get to be mentors. They teach from knowledge and experience, not from theory.
Our credibility also comes from our ICF accreditation. Our Diploma In Business Development for Coaches carries 40 CCEUs. This means that you can rest assured that our programmes content has been scoured by the ICF and found worthy of accreditation. 23 core competency and 17 resource development CCEUs is a lot – and that’s what we can give.
Our credibility comes from our structured programmes, each module has aims, objectives and desirable learning outcomes for the participants. We teach corporate, private client, third sector (charities) and UK public sector programmes – all accredited.
What I’m saying is if you’re a qualified coach and you need help with client acquisition, we are a good place to come. Should we talk? Click this link to reach the diary.
Recent Comments