We think that if we hang out with other coaches and pay for the right to do so, that this is where clients will come to find us. We join coaching directories believing this will be our client acquisition solution. We pay hundreds or even thousands of pounds for a listing, create our profile, add our qualifications and coaching philosophy, and wait for the enquiries to come.
They don’t come (or come infrequently). Despite all evidence to the contrary, we keep hoping that coaching directories will be the answer.
The Logic Doesn’t Work
The logic seems sound at first. There are directories for therapists, directories for solicitors, directories for architects. People use them to find professionals they need, so surely there must be people searching for coaches, and surely a directory is where they’ll look?
The problem is that precious few people are searching for a coach because most people have no idea what we do. Worse still, they think they know but they’re wrong. They think we’re going to teach them something or train them in something that we have already achieved. This is the problem with having a job title that had an existing and well-understood meaning before our profession started using it.
The biggest issue with them not knowing what we do is that it means they don’t recognise when coaching could be the solution to the problem they have, the problem that coaching could support them to resolve. If you don’t know coaching exists as a solution, you’re not going to search for a coach. If you think coaching is like sports coaching, you’re definitely not going to search for a coach to help with your career challenges or your overwhelming sense of dread about the next 15 years.
The Reality of Directories
The reality is we get a page on the directory where we can put a bio, maybe a list of qualifications, our coaching philosophy and approach, and we think this will attract clients. No one’s looking, and even if they were, they don’t want to know what we’ve spent our life doing, they want to understand what’s in it for them when they hire a coach.
Typically, our directory profiles talk about us – our credentials, our training, our approach, our philosophy. What potential clients need to see is themselves – their problem, their situation, their desired outcome, but that’s not what directories are set up to showcase, and it’s not what coaches typically put on their profiles.
The Developer’s Story
I once had a developer of a coaching directory book into my diary. I thought he wanted access to my community of coaches, but the truth was far more sobering.
He had invested two years of his life and all of his redundancy money into building a coach directory. He had 100 coaches registered who had each spent nearly £1,000 for the privilege, and he didn’t have any enquiries for coaching work coming to the directory. He wanted my thoughts on how to get clients to his directory.
The problem he had is that he’d done his Google keyword research far, far too late and realised that tens of thousands of people a month are searching for a coach – and that includes sports coaches and other types – rather than, for example, the millions who are searching for a therapist. He had built this directory because his wife was a coach and was struggling to find clients. He was a developer who had been made redundant, and the timing seemed perfect.
It wasn’t perfect. It was a costly mistake based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how people find coaches.
The Lottery Ticket Approach
There is always the odd story of a coach finding a client or two from a coach directory. I think of this as the same kind of thing as stories of people winning the lottery – nice if it happens, but don’t depend on it.
We hear these stories and think “that could be me.” We justify the expense by telling ourselves that if we just get one client from it, it will pay for itself. We treat it like a lottery ticket, hoping our number will come up, hoping we’ll be the lucky one.
Building a coaching business on hope and luck is not a strategy. It’s a gamble, and it’s one with terrible odds.
What We’re Paying For
When we pay for a directory listing, we’re paying for the illusion of client acquisition. We’re paying to feel like we’re doing something about our empty client roster. We’re paying for the hope that maybe, just maybe, someone will find us there.
What we’re not paying for is actual client acquisition. We’re not learning how to find clients. We’re not developing the skills to attract clients. We’re not building a system that consistently brings enquiries. We’re just putting our name on a list that almost nobody looks at and hoping for the best.
It feels productive, like we’re taking action and like we’re investing in our business, but it’s not productive action, and it’s not a wise investment.
The Better Investment
If we have hundreds or thousands of pounds to invest in our coaching business, there’s a much better use for those funds than a directory listing. Learn good client acquisition skill, because you can’t outsource it.
No directory, no matter how well-designed or how many coaches it lists, can do your client acquisition for you. Client acquisition requires you to understand who you’re marketing to, what problems they have, what language they use, where they can be found, and how to create content that makes them think “they’re talking about me.”
None of that happens on a directory profile. All of that happens when you learn how to market properly and apply those skills consistently.
The money you would spend on a directory listing would be better spent on learning how to create your own client flow. Spend it on understanding your target audience deeply, on developing marketing content that speaks to specific people about specific problems and on building systems that bring enquiries to you directly rather than hoping someone finds you on a list.
We Keep Hoping…
We keep hoping directories will work because the alternative feels harder. Learning client acquisition properly requires time, effort, and investment. It requires us to admit we have a knowledge gap and for us to do work that feels uncomfortable and unfamiliar.
Paying for a directory listing feels easier because it seems like we can outsource the problem. It feels like someone else will do the hard work of bringing clients to us, and all we have to do is show up on their list.
However, that’s not how it works, and deep down we probably know that. We’ve been listed on directories for months or years with no enquiries. We know other coaches who are also listed with no results. The evidence is right in front of us that this isn’t working, yet we keep hoping, because hoping is easier than learning.
The Choice
You can keep paying for directory listings and hoping someone finds you. You may continue treating client acquisition like a lottery where maybe your number will come up is another option. Of course outsourcing the problem to platforms that promise to bring clients to you remains a choice you can make.
Or you can recognise that client acquisition is a skill you need to learn. That no directory, no matter how comprehensive, can do your client acquisition work for you. That the only sustainable path to consistent clients is to learn how to attract them yourself.
The money you would spend on directories, the hope you’re placing in platforms, the time you’re spending updating profiles that nobody looks at – all of that could be directed towards actually learning what you need to know.
Think about where you can go to learn good client acquisition skills. Not where you can pay to be listed alongside other coaches and not where you can hope someone finds you, but where you can actually learn the skills that will build your business.
Because despite all evidence to the contrary, despite knowing that directories haven’t brought you clients, despite seeing other coaches struggle with the same problem, we keep hoping they’ll be the solution. They won’t be and learning proper client acquisition skills is.
An Opportunity
If you’ve wondered about spending on a directory, or you’ve been on one for a while and got little (or nothing) from it, may I offer you an opportunity? Why not join my next challenge, Nail Your Niche? We run it a few times every year and there’s even an option to upgrade to a VIP version, which gives you 3 x 60-minute group mentoring sessions with me for just £99 (inc VAT) – that provides us with time for a lot of conversations about things that would be a far better use of your time, energy and money than a coaching directory.
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