A Fast Way to Find Clients
by:
Suzanne Falter-Barns
So you’ve gotten the training certification, ready-made up your business cards, and started your web site. You’ve discovered your niche, and you have been marketing – sharply
even!
But still, no one’s exactly beating a path to your door. Kind of do you wonder what you’re doing wrong.
Chances are you’re doing everything right. The only thing that may be missing is a broader chance for the public to actually get a taste of which you are. You need to build relationships with these folks. Yet, how can you do that without actually coaching job them first?
Enter the big solution: workshops.
Holding workshops targeted to your niche is an first-class way to give your larger audience a real taste of what you do. The full 3-hour, or full-day format of a workshop gives your audience a chance to sit back and observe you at work. Not only that, if you’ve shaped your workshop to fit your niche, you’ll find yourself with an first-class information of interested potential clients. You’ll besides be able to test the drawing power of your niche quite graphically, and discover the most effective route to reach these folks. One clinical psychologist I cognize In New Dynasty City built a thriving practice just by leading three workshops just about Carl gustav jung and dream analysis.
An accessorial perk: once
you lead workshops, you get all kinds of terrific stories you can use in futurity articles, books, and speaking gigs. Three best-selling self-help authors I cognize actually lead workshops for this reason alone.
That said, there are a few key things that must be in place to turn your workshop the client magnet that it can be.
1. Give yourself and your workshop a brand name. Several of the most booming I cognize of are “The Ezine Queen”, “The Comfort Queen”, “Marketing Shaper”, “The Promotion Hound”, “Authentic Promotion”, and “The Grok”. These are ownable, distinctive names that let folk cognize exactly who you are … (well, possibly not The Grok.) One thing’s for sure… these folks, especially the Grok, are not easily forgotten.
2. Teach with your heart on the line. The teacher who cares the most wins … so move prepared, give it your all, and don’t say good-bye until virtually
everyone in the group has had several kind of breakthrough.
3. Hand out plenty of handouts. Class notes, additional resources, your own articles, forms, great quotations, etc., are essential marketing tools. Every one of them should have all of your contact information on them, including your brand name, email, website, all phone numbers, and fax. Put them in a snappy folder with a sticker on the cover that bears, yes… your brand name … and website. Then staple your business card to the inside of the folder. And be sure to include a well done one-sheet or booklet just about your coaching job services.
4. Give away a free coaching job session during the break. Just pass about a hat or jar to collect business cards as peoples move in (they can besides substitute name and email on paper.) Then draw your winner just before the break, which gives you the chance to give your coaching job a discreet plug. This technique is especially helpful if you’re doing your workshop in a venue wherever
you have not done registered the class, and you lack contact information for the group. That good jar of business cards gives you fodder for your database.
5. Don’t oversell your coaching. Just mention it a few times lightly, and let the truly interested approach you. Better yet, instead of merchandising it, tell several stories (protecting confidentiality, of course) from your practice that demonstrate what you do. That gives you the power of attraction, as opposed to the stink of the hard sell. If you do your job effectively, they wish come.
6. Stress the importance of acquiring keep at several point in your presentation. Keep is one thing that most folk actually deny themselves, yet that is so critical to success. And what better keep is there than coaching? Seed it lightly but firmly in your talk.
7. Continue to do your workshop in any appropriate market. Nothing builds a base of clients like systematically
acquiring out there. Your name gets heard, and your brand registers each time it does. You can travel topically
or globally with this. But do a point of researching several markets to find your perfect group. I do this by seeing wherever
another comparable workshop leaders are doing their thing, and I observe how they market themselves to these groups. Then I set up comparable tours.
For much information just about how to create, book, fill and lead your own workshops, go to http://www.howmuchjoy.com/tangfacil.html
Copyright 2004 Suzanne Falter-Barns
Suzanne Falter-Barns free ezine, The Joy Letter, brings you a crisp, fresh burst of inspiration for your dream every week or two. Sign up at http://www.howmuchjoy.com/joyletter.html