I’m often asked by new (as well as established) life coaches… “How can I promote my life coaching (or my business coaching) practice?”
Some have small budgets… some have significant funds to put behind their promotional efforts… but either way… people are looking for effective and powerful ways to get the word out about what they do.
My first response is a combination of two questions…
Who is your AVATAR?
In other words… who is your ideal life coaching client? Who do you do your best work with? Who do you love to help? Who do you want to build your life coaching practice around?
Who else serves them?
In other words… who offers other products or services to your ideal client? Who’s helping them in a different way?
Then… I ask a third question…
How could you partner with them?
In other words… where there might be opportunities to help each other as you serve your AVATAR… and… in the process… get the word out about what you do!
A CASE STUDY:
Let me offer up a specific case study from my own life coaching and business coaching practice.
One of my AVATAR profiles (my ideal clients for coaching and speaking) is the person who needs to dream and think bigger. They need to innovate and develop new solutions. Whether it’s for themselves or their organization… they need to shift their thinking process… look for new opportunities… and then pursue them.
In my area… there is a community college that is freakishly innovative. In fact, they are nationally recognized for their cutting edge strategies… they are at the center of innovation for our region… AND each year… they shut down classes for a week to have “iweek.”
During that week… they bring in various speakers and leaders to celebrate and study innovation.
All that to be said… we have a similar AVATAR. We serve that AVATAR in different ways… but our approaches compliment one another.
So… over the past few years… I’ve partnered with them on iweek.
Initially… I connected with the leader of iweek through a mutual friend. Then we talked shop and compared notes on our approaches to innovation. Then I offered to do a breakout session for iweek… for free. Again… I was looking for the win-win. (I don’t do much speaking for free anymore… but this was a great opportunity to get in front of a room of my AVATAR and help an organization that helps my AVATAR… so again… WIN-WIN!)
That went well… so our partnership has grown. We’ve collaborated on more and more projects.
For example, an article I wrote on innovation was just featured in a quarterly magazine that they publish that is delivered (n some cases… hand delivered) to the desks of key leaders in my region. Plus, it’s available online too. To read the article… you can click here.
Now… have I been paid for these efforts? Nope.
But has it been a WIN-WIN? Absolutely!
I’ve gained new clients (both coaching and speaking) from this activity, I’ve been able to grow as a local authority on the subject and I’ve been able to develop other freakishly cool relationships through this collaboration.
So I’m grateful… and excited.
I’m grateful for the business and the relationships.
I’m excited for what it’s done for my business. AND I’m excited because this is a strategy that YOU can use too!
THINK ABOUT IT…
Who also serves your AVATAR… your ideal client?
How might you partner with them to help them… expand your reach and grow your business in the process?
Give it some thought… and just see where it takes you.
Then… let us know what you come up with.
Keep dreaming big and helping others to do the same,
Mitch Matthews
