All Talk, No Clients?

I received a call from a coach who has been presenting to a group of over a dozen new people at a health farm every week. She's been getting great feedback at the end of the presentation on how useful it has been. Great eh? Well, not entirely as this has led to no paying clients from her activity so far. Zero, nada, Bo Diddly :-(

Being able to present to a group of a dozen new people each week is a tremendous opportunity for a new coach to attract clients - if you have a good strategy. Without a well thought out strategy, you can put in a lot of effort and still experience the frustration of no new clients.

I'm sure you've heard the definition of insanity right? Insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results. Do you know the definition of double insanity? Doing the same things twice as hard and expecting different results!

There were a number of reasons why the aforementioned coach has not been generating clients from this source and a few questions revealed some pointers:

1. Who is the presentation for?

The range of people in the audience is very wide with ages from 20-80+.

This can make targeting the message of the presentation challenging to say the least.

2. What are you covering in the presentation?

The coach has been focusing on elements of coaching such as the wheel of life and limiting beliefs. Although this has resulted in great feedback at the end of the presentation no one is coming forward to ask her to be their coach.

This is a common mistake. Focus the content on the challenges that people have and can relate to and how different their situation could be by working with you. Be sure to include plenty of valuable information too.

Assess the effectiveness of your presentation by the number of new enquiries it generates rather than just the quality of the feedback - no matter how glowing.

3. What are you offering at the end of the presentation?

The coach has been offering a complimentary session for all those attending but no one has taken up the offer so far.

I think that the offer of a complimentary session may be too much too soon in this case. The people in the audience will most likely be complete strangers. Do you think they want to move into a complimentary consultation right away?

Remember that before someone will work with you they need to know, like and trust you. Although a presentation establishes your credibility rather quickly you may need some additional time and effort to build the relationship further.

I would consider offering a complimentary report at the end of the presentation in exchange for their contact details. This will help you to identify who is most interested in your services so you can follow-up with them afterwards.

The subject of the report? I'd make it relevant to the audience - in this case something around the area of health and relaxation.

4. What process do you have in place once they contact you?

In addition to thinking through the structure of the presentation and the offer at the end it's also important to develop a process to convert people after they've expressed an interest.

Instead of offering a complimentary session straight away, I'd develop a series of offers made over time with increasing levels of commitment. For example, initially it could be a complimentary report with a newsletter sign-up, leading to a telelclass later on and then offering a complimentary consultation at the end of the process.

In this case, the newsletter could warm them up over time to knowing, liking and trusting you and the teleclass could motivate them to step up and request a complimentary consultation.

P.S. To learn how to convert prospects into clients have a look at the following past newsletter articles:

Converting Enquiries into Clients - Part 1

Converting Enquiries into Clients - Part 2

With very best wishes,

Authentic Practice
helping coaches to get more clients
45 Capitol Court
Old Coach Road
Wollaton
Nottingham
NG8 1GX

Website: http://www.authenticpractice.com

Tel.: (0845) 123 5105
Mobile: (07811) 262 111

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I work with coaches who have a strong desire to help others but are currently struggling to get clients. I help them to attract more clients and create a stable coaching practice to make a difference in the world.

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