Getting Started: General Marketing

Being able to promote yourself and your services is a crucial skill to have. However, all too often new coaches leap into trying out different Marketing techniques without putting in the groundwork which enables them to be strategic in their approach. Don't make this mistake. It's exhausting when you're running around trying out different techniques and can be very costly to learn by trial and error.

If you've got a background in Sales or Marketing, you're already ahead of the pack but remember that if you have corporate marketing experience or you are more used to promoting established, tangible products rather than services in a small business, you DO need to go back to basics and learn about how to promote services - they do need a different approach.

If you have no prior experience in Marketing, it's nothing to be afraid of! It's fair to say that the principles behind good Marketing are simple, but that doesn't make them easy to implement if you've never done anything like this before. Don't be distracted by new techniques just because they are new. It might not be sexy, but some of the best ways to get clients as a coach are the tried and tested techniques.

No B.S. Notice: You have probably seen plenty of ebooks, articles and resources telling you how you can 'make a six figure income on Twitter' or how you can 'create a passive income through writing ebooks'. Remember, all of these marketing techniques focus on you selling 'information products' rather than coaching services. Yes, many of these techniques WILL work for these kinds of products, but may not help you win paying one-to-one coaching clients or fill your workshops. Don't feel pressured into creating products unless that's part of your longer term strategy. If you want a part-time or full-time coaching business from working with coaching clients, focus on the activities which are designed to do this.

The articles and resources below will give you an overview of what you will need to think about when promoting your services. When you're ready to move on to more advanced techniques, go to the 'Building Your Practice' section on the left hand panel and select the relevant topics from the list.