Like it or not, we live in a time when your (prospective) coaching clients demand specialization. They want to feel they are receiving the product or service they want and need from someone they perceive as an authority in their niche – someone who carved out a prominent visibility and credibility in that market.
This doesn’t mean you have to have an MBA or a doctoral degree in your topic. Instead, you MUST position yourself and your business as someone whose only purpose is to help your ideal client with their specific transformation needs; and you CAN’T do that while trying to be everything to everyone. And… even if you have a doctoral degree, MBA, or any advanced training, positioning is still key – your advanced training will not get you clients if your marketing materials (including your website) DON’T position you as an authority in your niche.
Most business owners today try to expand their product or service offerings, reasoning (incorrectly) that they’re casting a wider net that will catch more fish. In reality, they’re doing the exact opposite. Your prospects want to feel as though you are focused solely on the challenges/needs/strong desires that are most important to them. If you try to be everything to everyone, you lose credibility and end up attracting no one… OR extremely few, while expending much more effort, and more marketing $$$s.
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12 Ways to Generate More Leads & More Income with Your Blog
How to Get Coaching Clients, Part 10: Build a “Tribe of 1000 True Fans” [List-Building]
How to Get Coaching Clients with Your Website, Part 8 – Convert Visitors into Leads… and Clients
Quick Basic SEO Tutorial
7 Steps to Positioning Yourself as an Authority in Your Niche
Here are 7 simple steps* that will help you become seen as an Authority – OR the Go-to-Guy – in your niche:
* – the first 4 also act as a “niche-test” – if any one of those elements is missing (1 through 4), you’ll find yourself struggling and eventually failing(!)
1. Become clear who you’d like to work with – who is your ideal client (your target market)? Are they frustrated, overworked, and overwhelmed managers? Or dentists who want to improve their team’s customer service? Or employees over age 55 who want to start planning a balanced and purposeful retirement? The more clear you are on this, the easier it’ll be to find them, craft your marketing message to them, and sell to them (though, in my above examples, “employees age 55 and up,” they’d be harder to find, compared to the other two examples)
2. Know what your ideal clients really want. Find out what are their most burning pain areas, or burning desires of your target market – so burning that they are willing to pay for the solution. Let your website demonstrate that you understand their needs! Use language that shows you understand their frustrations or desires even better than they do, and provide hope for relief.
3. Make sure that your ideal client can afford your fees (!!! – you might have to re-do #1 above if your target market is broke). Become known as an authority in a niche that a) Has the money to pay for your service/s’ b) Is actively looking for your service, and c) Your research found that they are already spending on your type of solution (don’t try to reinvent the wheel!)
4. Go after a target market that you can find easily. You can have the greatest service or product; if you can’t easily reach those who need it most, you are setting yourself up for failure right from the start. Ask yourself,
- does my target market – my ideal clients – gather in groups (LinkedIn, FaceBook, etc), associations, etc;
- know what magazines they read;
- do they have industry-specific magazines? (if your ideal clients are dentists, for example – do they have trade magazines?)
- Find out if you can publish articles in these publications – contact the editor and ask if they have a publishing schedule (what topics do they cover in the upcoming issues?)
- Find out the advertising rates (make sure to talk to a marketing pro before you spend on expensive ads!)
- do they have online magazines where you can publish articles and/or advertise
- do they have regular events – conferences, conventions, etc.
5. Become (massively) visible in front of your target market. Position yourself as an authority/expert to your target market by providing them solutions to their burning problems or desires
- get listed in online directories; ideally in niche/industry-specific directories – you can start with www.myCoachingCenter.com (for almost a decade my business came primarily through HR Managers – they were the ones who’d hire me to provide Leadership-Development, Team-Building, etc. workshop for their organization… For that reason, I listed myself into many HR and Management directories)
- publish a weekly blog, on your website, covering relevant, high-value topics – keep them short, with one short implementable action step. Let them want more… let them want to read more of your blog posts for more value bits.
- publish articles on LinkedIn, Medium, your website, and other high-authority websites
- publish articles on as many of your niche’s industry-specific online magazines as possible
- have a “newsletter” – or rather a FREE eCourse or Video Course that can be accessed by providing ones Name and eMail address. This should be prominent on your home page, and ideally on the side-bar on each page of your website.
- Have a link to this freebie in your bi-line that you append to all of the articles and blog posts you publish; as well as in your eMail signature. This is your “vehicle” to build you a massive list – to Build your Tribe of Followers who will later buy your services and products
- transform your articles into videos and publish them on YouTube (and potentially other video platforms)
- make sure to create a keyword-friendly title
- add a keyword loaded video description (you can probably paste in your blog post – or part of it – as a video description)
6. Invest time to word your offers in a way that your ideal client can relate to it AND wants to engage with you. It is your words that will get you hired. All the visibility in the world can be worthless if your message does not resonate with your prospects. Talk directly to them, such as “Are you a professional who feels overwhelmed and unproductive? …” – all overwhelmed and unproductive professionals know that they’ve arrived at the right website (if they like what they read next… Every headline, subheadline, paragraph should “force”/invite the reader to continue reading and increase the desire to engage with you.
7. Offer paid solutions to your followers. After all, you are doing this to generate an income, right? Make sure to mention your paid solutions in some of your videos, webinars, etc; also, have links to your paid solutions at the end of your articles, blog posts, in your videos, and in some (about 25% of your eMail communication with your followers. We’ll talk more in-depth on how to do this effectively in upcoming instructional articles. Bottom line is, though, if people don’t know about what you offer; well… they don’t know what you offer and can’t buy anything from you.
The 20/80 Rule
If you pay close attention, you’ll notice that a mere 20% of your current clients are producing 80% of your total business revenue. Those are your ideal clients, and they love what you do and what you provide for them. When you select the area that attracted them to you as your niche market, you immediately begin to attract this type of client in droves.
Your revenue and profits will begin to skyrocket, and you will actually begin to work fewer hours. You will “play” at what you do instead of working on what drains you. If you fail to create a niche market for your business, the cost to you may be staggering…
- You lose revenue and profit
- You work longer and harder
- You lose the chance to build a valuable business asset
- You will be forced to compete forever on price
- You miss out on becoming unique or differentiate your business from your competition
The above might sound a little harsh, but let’s face it, if you are invisible to your ideal clients, your business is doomed to fail. And even if you are visible, you’ll find that specializing in your ideal client’s needs is what will get you most clients in the shortest time. Just think about it, if your website looks the same as 50,000 other business’s websites; if your message seems similar, then why would someone hire you vs. any of the other similar service providers?
When you differentiate yourself by being clear about WHO you serve and WHAT you serve to them, you’ll now stand out and start attracting the clients who feel that your message addresses their needs.
These are some of the strategies that you as a coaching – or any type of (premium-priced) service business owner ought to strongly consider and implement in order to effectively position your business as a trusted and “most wanted” service provider, and finally start earning the income you know your business CAN produce.
Let me know if you have any questions about any of the concepts described above. And if you already positioned yourself as the go-to-guy – or ‘gal’ – in your niche, share with us in the comments on how did you accomplish that…
To your success,
E.G. Sebastian, CPC, CSL
Your Business-Growth & Client-Attraction Mentor
PS – If you liked this article, make sure to share it with your friends, on your social media of choice…
PPS – Do you want instant access to tutorials that will help you implement strategies that will position you as an authority in your niche? As well as get access to weekly support calls? Click HERE to find out how to get the support you need, without breaking the bank!
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E.G. Sebastian is a veteran entrepreneur of 20+ years. He is the founder of www.myClientAttractionAcademy.com and an international speaker (speaks 6 languages). E.G. specializes primarily in helping coaches, consultants, speakers, authors, and service-business owners put in place all the elements needed for business success, with a focus on helping his clients get massive visibility for their business and convert that visibility into paying clients. Explore and Test-Drive E.G.’s marketing and business-development tutorials – click here!
Need Help Implementing These Strategies?
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