How to Market Yourself as a Coach or Consultant

In this lesson you'll learn (1) What to expect from this course, (2) how to get the most out of this course, (3) the real world experience behind this course.

It’s time to do a complete inventory of the experience, education, and skills you bring into your business. It’s this collection that makes you and your business different from all others. It’s also what will enable you to attract the clients you can best help, and those who want what you do, in the way only you do it. It also includes the Toolbox Inventory Worksheet to help you collect all of your relevant experience.

This lesson will help you uncover what you’re really selling, so you can market and sell what your clients want to buy. The Pain-Promise worksheet makes it easy for you to identify the problems or desires your ideal clients have, and what you do to help them overcome those problems or achieve their desires, so you can focus on these things in your marketing.

Your Niche is the type of work and type of client you choose to specialize in. The Niche worksheet will help you clarify and put a name to your niche.

In this lecture you'll learn a simple, step-by-step process for creating your own Signature Coaching or Consulting Program.

Understand what you CAN and CAN'T promise your clients in terms of outcomes when they work with you and complete your Signature Program

Learn how to confidently set a price for your Signature Program that's not based on selling your time by the hour or what other coaches or consultants in your industry are charging. The Pricing Your Signature Program Worksheet will help you to confidently price your program.

This lecture explains how you can make sure the Signature Program you've created, and priced, is financially viable. That is, will it deliver the income you need to keep your business afloat. Following the five steps in the Financial Viability Test Worksheet will ensure you have designed a financially viable Signature Program and business.

Learn how to create Cash Flow Projections so you know you can get to your financial goals with your Signature Program at the price you've set. The Cash Flow Projections Worksheet and Cash Flow Projections Example Spreadsheet will help you determine how many clients, and how much monthly income it will take to generate the annual business revenue you desire.

Understand the pros and cons of using your given name as an independent coach or consultant vs. creating a brand name to market and sell your services.

This lecture walks you through the first step in developing a unique and compelling brand identity that will set you apart from everyone else who does what you do--a critical step in being able to effectively market your services. It also includes the Brand Discovery Questionnaire.

This lecture includes an introduction to the Brand Brainstorming process, which you can use to come up with a unique and compelling brand name that communicates your Brand Platform to your ideal clients and helps them see you are the best coach or consultant to help them.

Understand the 3 ways you can Brand Yourself as an independent coach or consultant so you can pick the one that suits you and your business best.

This lecture will help you develop a brand name to represent the brand platform you identified in the Brand Discovery exercise. It walks you through brainstorming techniques to kick-start the creative process and make it easier to develop a unique, compelling, and appropriate brand name to market your business under.

Brand Research – Make sure your chosen name is available

Find out if your desired brand name is available, or if it’s already being used by someone else. There are several avenues you’ll want to check. The tips shared in this lesson will help you find a unique brand name that no one else in your industry is using.

The Brand Research and Protection Worksheet details all of the resources and suggestions shared in this lesson.

Once you’ve decided on a Brand Name, it’s important to protect it so no one else can use it (at least in your business category) and so all the equity you build in the name over time is protected. Don’t be scared of this process, it’s actually quite easy to do using the resources I recommend, and it’s definitely worth the investment in your brand if you plan to be doing business for years to come.

This lesson and the Brand Research and Protection Worksheet from the previous video lesson share several steps you can take to start protecting your brand name right away.

Brand Implementation

Once you have your brand platform and brand name, you want to integrate it into your entire business and marketing. The idea is that at every touch-point of your business, your clients get the message loud and clear, about who you are and what you do. This consistency is what enables you to develop brand awareness. It also builds trust because people get a consistent, singular message from you.

The Brand Implementation Checklist and Branded Words & Phrases Handout will help you make sure you’re representing your brand name or idea/platform throughout your entire business and marketing.

This lesson introduces what will be covered in the Marketing section of this course.

It’s important to be able to clearly and concisely sum up what you do for your clients. The fill-in-the-blank Core Marketing Message worksheet will make it easy for you to do this, and ensure you’re focused on communicating a meaningful, consistent message to your ideal clients.

Now it’s time to develop some marketing copy points that you can use on your website, or in any marketing materials you create. By creating a series of marketing bullet points that support your Core Marketing Message, and that are pulled directly from your Pain-Promise Worksheet, you’ll ensure your marketing is consistent and speaking directly to your ideal clients.

The attached Developing Your Marketing Copy details 4 different types of marketing copy you'll want to create, and walks you through a simple process to write your marketing copy.

In this lesson you'll learn how to develop marketing copy based on your ideal clients' pains so you know your marketing copy speaks directly to the problems your ideal clients want to hire you to resolve.

In this lesson you'll learn how to develop marketing copy based on the promises you make to your ideal clients - or in other words, what you help them do (or do for them) so you know your marketing copy speaks directly to what your ideal clients want.

Develop supporting marketing copy points you can use in all of your marketing to ensure your marketing message is consistent and speaks directly to what your ideal clients are searching for and are willing to pay money for.

Every piece of marketing you create needs to have a Call to Action. It needs to tell your prospects what you want them to do next. In this lesson I share the 2 basic Calls to Action for coach and consultant marketing. You'll want to include one of these calls to action in every piece of marketing you create.

In order to effectively market your coaching or consulting business, you’ll need to satisfy 3 Marketing Objectives. The Marketing Objectives & Strategies Handout breaks down these 3 marketing objectives and suggested marketing activities you can use to accomplish each objective. The first objective is what you must achieve to get clients into your coaching or consulting business.

This lecture explains the importance of relationship building, and why it's one of the three marketing objectives you must achieve in order to create a successful and profitable coaching or consulting business.

This lecture includes actual Free Reports I used in my coaching and consulting business that I operated under the brand name The Business Stylist, as well as two examples of Free Reports I've used to market my online course business. It also includes examples of Client Attraction and Relationship Marketing content.

This lecture explains the third of three marketing objectives that must be achieved in order to create a successful and profitable coaching or consulting business.

An introduction to Wordpress Website Development and the pages you'll want to have on your Coaching or Consulting Website

Learn where and how to find free Wordpress Website Themes and Free Starter Templates you can use to build your own Coaching or Consulting Website.

A brief overview of the steps you'll be taking as you build your own Wordpress Website for your Coaching or Consulting Business.

Learn how to register a domain name for your business, secure Wordpress Website Hosting, and how to Point Your Domain to your Hosting so you can build your own Wordpress Website for your Coaching or Consulting Business.

Learn how to create a new website inside your hosting platform (I demo how to do this using Siteground Hosting) and how to install Wordpress for free so you can build your own Coaching or Consulting Website.

Learn two different ways to install Free Wordpress Themes, and how to install Free Astra Theme Starter Templates so you can build your own Coaching or Consulting Business Website.

Learn how to Customize a Wordpress Astra Theme Starter Template. Learn how to change colors, your website header, add your logomark to your website, how to change fonts, copy, images and photos.

Learn how to Customize a Wordpress Astra Theme Starter Template. Learn how to change pages, navigation menus, and your website footer.

Get inspired to create your own Wordpress Coaching or Consulting website by these examples of top coach and consultant websites.

This lecture explains why it's important to have a marketing plan, and why a 90-day plan is preferable to a 12-month plan. It provides tips for creating your plan, along with a marketing plan template and a sample plan you can use as an example to help you create yours.

As an independent coach or consultant, offering complimentary or free consultations is a great way to get clients. It allows you to find out if prospects are a good fit for your services and if you want to work with them. This section outlines the process I used for years to get private consulting clients, and one-on-one coaching clients. I share it with you to give you a framework for these calls, video chats, or in-person meetings (the method of delivery is entirely up to you). While this is a sales process, I think you’ll find it’s not intimidating and it doesn’t feel like a sales call. Rather, it’s more of a fact-finding conversation that I hope you’ll learn to enjoy.

In this video lesson I walk you through the first half of the Free Consultation Agenda.

In this video lesson I walk you through the second half of the Free Consultation Agenda. The attached Free Consultation Process Handout details this process and all of the steps I recommend you use as an agenda for these meetings/calls.

Now that you know how to conduct a Free Consultation, I want to help you understand all the ways you can generate Free Consultations. In this lesson I share a variety of ways you can market and invite people into Free Consultations with you.

In this video lesson I share how to track how well you're converting prospects into paying clients on your Free Consultations, and how you can use your closing ratio to predict and plan your monthly income.

The Free Consultation Tracking Worksheet and How Many Free Consults Worksheet will help you keep track of your Free Consultations and predict and plan your monthly coaching or consulting income.

In this lesson I share my recommendations for when to add services in addition to your Signature Program, and when diversification can increase your income without hurting your coaching or consulting business.

In this lesson I share some final words of encouragement to help motivate and inspire you as you apply what you've learned about marketing your coaching or consulting services.

Downloadable list of online resources mentioned in this course.

I encourage you to review the attached Q&A document. It includes questions from students enrolled in this course and my answers to those questions. Reviewing this Q&A can help clarify aspects of the process I teach in this course, as well as answer similar questions you may have.

I also believe it brings the course content into the real world because it includes questions and challenges from coaches and consultants (or aspiring coaches and consultants) who are applying this process to their businesses.