The Robin that you see here is exactly the Robin that you get in real life and in his coaching program. He’s always authentic and there is always something to learn or be reminded about. Love it.
@@RobinMWaite If you have an opinion on online communities for consultants and coaches, I think a lot of us would like to hear it. Specifically, in terms of joining one versus running one as an acquisition channel. Some say that conversion rate from community is great, but others that it's tough to run them.
@@RobinMWaite When you offered to hear out my suggestions, I had a different topic in mind that I thought was selfish to ask for. But after sleeping on it, I think I might be wrong. If I struggle with it, others might as well. If you have time to hear me out: I recently encountered a problem where a lack of social proof prevented me from landing a project. I have all the necessary experience as an employee, but I haven't secured my first solo gig yet. I just received some advice to address this issue proactively by offering a 50% discount if clients take a leap with me. Maybe you could share your advice on this in a video?
@@ivor_foxtailsoftware this is quite common when just starting out (and even for many established businesses). The discount is a great idea, but don't do too many of them. In this video I mentioned doing "three-for-free" but you could work with three clients at full price, but at the end of the engagement if they record a video testimonial and leave a review then refund them 50%. So it's not really a discount "as such" but it's an incentive to complete the work with you and help you out at the end. Also, when I do a consultation I use Acuity Scheduling (like Calendly) to book those calls, and 24 hrs after the call the client gets an automated email inviting them to leave a Google Review. Many of the Google reviews come from people who get value on the call but perhaps then don't become clients (for whatever reason) but are happy to leave a positive review. I think I've not got 160+ reviews this way over the past few years for very little extra effort. Finally is there a "smaller" version of your service you can offer to get clients started when they, like a breakthrough product perhaps? Lower financial/time commitment but still gets them an outcome and less of a risk?
@@ivor_foxtailsoftware On this, I'm a big fan of "pay-to-play" - I won't lie, I'd love to speak at Atomicon which is one of the biggest Marketing Conferences here in the UK. So for the past two years I've sponsored the event so I can get to know the event organisers better and hopefully land that gig and get to know their community. These types of partnerships are so important to run alongside your usual customer acquisition channels.
That is a really fair question, many coaches have some form of life experience first, so maybe a career they’re moving away from or perhaps experienced coaching themselves. And then undertake some kind of training to qualify as a coach. It’s also why a lot of coaching certifications insist on you do 100 hours, often unpaid, coaching to certify so they can see if you’re able to apply the coaching frameworks. I had 12 years running a successful business before pivoting into coaching (and to be fair I started off mentoring first before moving into coaching). And think about it all teachers have been through school before they qualify as a teacher and everyone has to start somewhere. It’s a part of the process. But where I have an issue, and perhaps where your question is super appropriate is where the coach isn’t congruent i.e. the 21 year old life coach, the overweight fitness professional, and the poor money coach. The coach needs to have actually done the thing they’re coaching others to do!!
And, one final point, I would "hope" that all coaches sign up to the ethical and moral code of conduct as a coach. Which basically means if you can't help someone you shouldn't sell them coaching. I firmly believe in this as a rule. The idea being you'd refer someone (and/or refund them) if you can't help them or don't get the desired results/outcome.
The principles I talk about can generally be applied to any service/client business. My sweet spot is pricing, but I broadly help coaches, consultants and freelancers in my group, a majority of whom charged hourly rate. And my job is to help them charge based on the great results they get for their clients but productising their services. And thank you for the great question, I know a lot of people on here are shamelessly self-promoting themselves, I prefer to add value wherever I can 🙌🏻🙌🏻
