Coaching has been around for decades. But the lanscape is changing in this arena. And finding business coaching leads is become harder than ever. In years past, not many people were open to hiring coaches until the early 2000’s when a spike in entrepreneurship appeared around the globe.
This doesn’t mean business coaching wasn’t crucial before, but people used to ask their close friends or someone else to provide some advice, not to coach them in specific.
However, now that this market has expanded and there are, indeed, people who are willing to pay for business coaching services, you can start working around your lead generation process and strategies to generate more leads.
We know this is much easier said than done, but we are here for a reason: To help you work towards those business coaching leads for your company or services.
Therefore, just stay tuned and make sure to take note of all the tips and tactics below:
Define Your Audience
Before you can get started in lead generation, it is important to define your audience and take all the time you need for this since, if you don’t do it, it is only natural to fail in every strategy you are setting to generate quality leads.
Basically, this is important because it will help you ensure that your marketing efforts are successful.
If you share your content with the right people, it may result in strong leads, and the results from future lead generation strategies will also be better.
Now, how can you start with this step? You need to create a customer persona in order to define your audience.
This persona should reflect their interests, locations, behavior, demographics, and other factors. You can target your audience based on this customer persona.
This group should be the focus of all your marketing and content creation. For example, if you sell women’s clothes, you should exclude men from your target audience and only target women if your business is located in a specific area.
In the case of business coaching services, you have a broader audience in terms of gender and specific characteristics, but you will have to focus on what they are trying to achieve.
For example, you will have to aim for those who are trying to start their businesses or maybe already did but are having a hard time making it boom.
Earn Their Attention… Organically
This is a must-have since organic in lead generation is the synonym of “free.”
Believe it or not, the organic leads and people you can attract are usually sales leads, and we can even categorize them as high-quality leads. Although technically this is free, it requires work.
Organic traffic is the best method to build trust and credibility with your audience as well. You should focus on getting more people to read your content, and you will be more likely to get them to pay you if you have more people paying attention.
But what can you do to gain their attention and work around the traffic you organically generate?
Here are a few options:
- You can teach on a live stream. This strategy shows people that you are knowledgeable. Since teaching is a key part of being a coach or consultant, giving some valuable information and showing your skills can be a great option to generate more business coaching marketing qualified leads.
- Create clever and insightful content. If you aren’t good at recording videos or working with this format, don’t push yourself. Many business coaches prefer to use their writing skills as long as they are better and can be improved as well.
For any of the options you choose, you should double, if not triple, your efforts in order to obtain the desired result.
Use Lead Magnets Properly
If you want to attract people, you will need to know where, when, and how to place your lead magnets, so they feel encouraged to work with you.
Sometimes, you can put a lot of effort into your content and other elements for your business coaching lead generation strategy, but some people are just waiting for a lead magnet that can make them say, “All right. I’ll ask for info.”
Lead magnets are what make it easier for visitors to convert into leads since they are being attracted to something you are offering—for example, a free webinar with details about businesses and how to improve their strategies.
If you are not familiar with it, don’t worry. Here are some magnets you can integrate into your lead generation efforts:
- Discovery Call.
A discovery call is a powerful lead magnet for coaches because of the power and intimacy that one-on-one conversations can bring.
A discovery call allows you to get to know your potential clients on a deeper level and vice versa, so they will feel more relieved and have a sense of safety when considering you as their coach.
In addition, you can meet them and decide if they are a good match for your coaching program. You can get to know them as a coach, and they will be able to determine if you are a good fit based on your style as well.
Because discovery calls are made in advance, you will get their full attention for anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes.
This is why those calls are the ideal setting to build a relationship with potential clients.
- Assessment or Quiz.
People are curious about their own lives, so offer your audience a quiz or assessment to find out more about them.
Like all lead magnets, you should make sure that the content is relevant to your business offer.
For the quiz or assessment, you can include factors and questions that can be a bit invasive but very important for the final result:
- What their situation is and who they are.
- Are they currently facing a number of challenges?
- What they need or want right now.
- What is holding them back?
The results of the assessment and quiz could be presented to the client. This will highlight the gaps between their current and future goals and help you position your coaching program to help them reach those goals.
- Checklist or Cheatsheet.
To keep it simple, this is an easy-to-understand and implement guide.
A checklist, also known as a cheat sheet, gives your target audience a detailed breakdown of a topic. It could include a list of items, reminders, or an overview of the steps.
For your business coaching service, it could include tops, tools, resources, mindset, journal prompts, and similar elements that are positive as well, like quotes and habits.
Your potential client may print or keep your cheat sheet or checklist depending on its value. This will make you an expert and trusted source that they could turn to anytime, even if it isn’t right after you have provided the list.
- Workbook.
People will be more motivated to sign up for your email lists if they have a workbook.
Your workbook could be used to help the user learn more about a topic, “work” through a process, or solve a problem.
You can make your workbook even more useful by adding the following:
- PDF-editable – for those who prefer to use electronic devices.
- For those who prefer to print, ink-friendly.
- Challenges are a great way to attract leads, especially for online businesses.
You can challenge your clients by giving them daily instructions or prompts to help them through a process. This will give them an easy win every day.
This will increase their engagement by allowing them to continue following along. It can also increase accountability because they would be motivated to complete the challenge until the end.
- Access to a community.
You could offer access to a membership or Facebook group if you are interested in creating a community around your coaching business.
You can get to know your target audience better by creating a space where they can interact and hang out with you. This will increase trust and knowledge.
To encourage participation within the group, you could create daily themes or prompts. You can even live-teach or answer common questions.
You could offer members exclusive resources in addition to the community aspect.
High-quality Written Blogs
Content works well as a lead generation strategy for very specific reasons. You provide value and engage people’s attention while also making sure you show how professional and knowledgeable you are.
In the case of content, blogs are a foundation for your strategy to build relationships with the right people, and with them, we mean the people who are interested in your business and will convert into leads or clients.
However, before you do decide to write a blog post, it is important to understand your motivations for writing this content and how you will promote it.
For it, these are some questions to help you get started:
- Can the content help your prospects in any possible way?
- What could you do to provide better content than your competitors?
- Are your target clients spending their time online, and where? For example, are they reading blogs? Or maybe participating in LinkedIn groups?
- Would you rather have 100 readers who are all from your target market or 1,000 readers with a few target customers?
- What content medium do your target clients prefer to read your content?
- Are your core competencies sufficient to create high-quality content?
This is very simple and if you got a bit lost with the questions, just remember this: For your content to succeed, you must care deeply about helping your clients; this means you need to care about every need your customer has.
You can be a teacher who invests in your students’ future or, in this instance, in your clients to generate more business coaching leads.
Of course, after creating your content. It is not enough to just leave it there.
Your target customers must read your content. To do this, you will need to run or promote ads for your content.
You can use Search Engine Optimizations (SEO) to optimize your content marketing as well. However, you can also proactively search for potential readers by:
- Engaging online communities.
- Make the most of your current connections to increase social sharing.
- Run ads.
- Email marketing.
- Reach out to relevant people on LinkedIn.
- Use repurposed blogs to spread the word on different platforms.
Use LinkedIn in Your Lead Generation Strategy
LinkedIn can be used to generate leads, and especially those for the business coaching niche.
But how can you make this platform work towards your lead generation goals? What are the best ways to generate your business coaching leads?
Let’s start with the basics and what you should remember: LinkedIn is your online resume, which is why a decent profile is essential for people to be able to trust you.
It’s crucial to optimize the site and learn how to use it best. Since this can be very complex, we will lend you a hand by going over some of the essentials:
- Make your profile stand out.
Your profile should be unique. After reading your profile, someone should feel like they know you and can trust you professionally.
Upload a photo that best represents your professional image and company. Please remember to avoid selfies, beach shots, and photos with friends.
Next, you will need to write a succinct summary.
Your professional background and experience should be included in the summary. This section will tell people about you, your career highlights, and the reasons you chose to sell life insurance.
If you don’t give a concise summary, many people won’t scroll down to view your entire career history. Instead, focus on the most important aspects and provide only the most pertinent information.
Don’t list just the dates and job titles when you discuss your work history. This section should look like a resume, with bullet points that highlight the accomplishments of each job.
Your writing style can also have an impact on them. Therefore, it is important to be casual but professional.
While you don’t want your customers to feel like they’re drinking coffee, it’s not a good idea to make them feel that way.
- Don’t be afraid to share your knowledge.
LinkedIn forums are a great place to share industry knowledge and generate leads.
Don’t be pushy nor intrusive. Based on your knowledge, more people will reach out to you as you answer more questions.
It’s about giving valuable information to help them understand what you do and, indirectly, about your services in business coaching.
- Maintain relationships with your contacts list by staying in touch.
LinkedIn does not work if you only reach out to people on your contact list for leads or referrals.
Reach out to your friends and family to offer assistance, wish them a happy birthday, or congratulations on a recent promotion.
They are more likely to send the policy to the agent they have the best relationship with if they have life insurance companies they can refer to.
Be on the lookout for life-changing events.
Sometimes, even the smallest social media post can indicate that someone is looking for your services as a life insurance agent.
The sonogram image is always visible. A new arrival reflects an increase in financial burden over the past 18 years. This is a great opportunity to reach out to your contact and express congratulations.
It is simple to use the “connect and nourish” strategy. For it, you will have to do your research on LinkedIn to find potential clients. Then, you communicate with them through personalized messages that mention a common interest or ground.
This is very common on the platform, and we receive messages every now and then from users.
Once you have made the first contact, sending the lead a helpful article, video, or the content that you have created might be a good way to keep it interested.
From there, continue the conversation and ask questions to help you transition to a phone call or face-to-face meeting.
You can also nurture leads that are already interested because you will be spending a lot of time and effort with them.
Also, it doesn’t need to be through a phone call or face-to-face meeting later on. Instead, you can just continue nurturing and keeping in touch with your potential business coaching leads through the platform until they are willing to convert.
- Referrals.
LinkedIn’s second lead-generating strategy is to make referrals, and you will notice that this is quite everywhere, not only on the platform.
LinkedIn is essentially a way to build a large network of potential contacts. You only need to ensure that you have strong referrals and are connected with the right people.
These people could be former clients or current clients who are happy to refer you to their contacts. If you ask them to refer you, be sure to do it in person or provide some benefits to encourage them to do so.
- LinkedIn Content Marketing.
If you follow the content creation aspect from earlier, you can use it on LinkedIn as well, which is one of the main platforms where blogs and any other content format are constantly posted to generate leads.
LinkedIn seems to have a large audience who may not go to their newsfeeds for social events. They scroll through articles to see if they have anything of interest.
However, LinkedIn favors text-only posts more than videos or graphics and similar media options.
Thus, if you are able to write a compelling post that captures people’s attention in around 1,300 words, then you can begin posting them, and you will notice great results as long as it is optimized as well.
- Use advertising.
LinkedIn Ads are not as sophisticated as Facebook Ads, but they do have a lot of demographics and firmographics, such as job titles, seniority, and other information.
Retargeting Works and Is a Must
Do you remember the last time you searched for a pair of shoes on Amazon and saw ads for them for two weeks? Have you ever wondered what Amazon did to make this magic happen?
This technique is known as retargeting, and it’s one of the most lucrative marketing investments a company or any professional can make in order to finally “push” prospects to make a decision.
This decision or action doesn’t have to be entirely related to hiring the business coaching services right away, but contacting you is part of the lead process, and you want them to take those actions.
When they do, the retargeting and your effort are worth it.
Now, essentially, retargeting lets you send targeted ads to people who do specific actions on your website, like adding an item to their shopping basket without making a purchase or when they don’t fill the entire contact form to get in touch for more details of your business coaching services.
Retargeting is a complex process that requires expert assistance, but if you take some time to learn the basics and some concepts, you can start it before jumping or looking for a professional.
Conversion Rate Optimization
This part is so extensive that we could right almost the same extension of this blog is another one for CRO only. However, we will do our best to summarize it.
First, conversion rate optimization is one of the first factors you need to consider even before retargeting.
Second, CRO is a broad term. There are hundreds of tactics you can use, but the process remains the same.
It is all about how you should assess which pages are most effective at capturing leads. This page can be a landing page for a campaign or one that provides information about your products and services.
It’s usually your content market or web design service pages. However, this may vary from one business to another, and you can use data from Google Analytics to see where your visitors are landing.
To find out more ways to convert visitors into leads, you can use tools like Fullstory and Hotjar –
The list of things you can do to improve conversion rates is endless.
The Local Lead Generation Process for Your Business Coaching Company
All right! So, everything is about building properties and generating leads. But how does the process actually take place? Are there other steps I need to know?
The steps I mention below are what students from our local lead generation program follow to generate leads for businesses like yourself. So I’ll help you see what we do. And how if you join our program, you can simply generate leads for your own business (unless you want to start a side hustle and build a laptop lifestyle business).
Essentially, our lead generation can be divided into four steps:
The first is prospecting. You need to take the time to do market research on a niche (industry) and determine how many phone-driven businesses are there.
Keep in mind that this is local research as you need to know how many companies need leads. For example, you may search for “plumbing services Youngstown OH.”
You will find dozens or even hundreds of businesses trying to get themselves in front of the customers by ranking on Map Listings, organic results, and even Ad.
The second step, building. When you find a niche (plumbing, tree services, a software company, real estate…), you will need to start building your digital properties. You don’t need to be an expert in HTML or coding. It can be easy with the right tools.
The third step is now taking time to rank your lead gen website. With the site done, you need to work on SEO strategies and start dominating those Google search results. If you’re new to SEO, it stands for Search Engine Optimization.
To keep it simple, it consists of the entire process of growing a company’s visibility on search engines like Google and generating organic traffic. And remember this, local lead generation is part of the strategies.
Moving on to step four, once you rank the site, you will start getting your ROI and profits. You only need to rent it out to a local business interested in the leads the site generates. You can offer a couple of free leads to their move on with the actual pay per lead.
To review steps 1-4 above, I described it to a normal student who is building a lead gen business to help local service providers generate more calls. But replace the student with you as the business owner. And replace sending the leads to a business to simply siphoning the leads to your personal business.
By the way, fun fact, about 20% of our students in our local lead gen program are actually business owners who went through the program. And they use the skillsets we teach to generate leads for their own business.
An Example of Lead Generation: Home Advisor
You must be thinking, “if lead generation sounds so good so far, how come I haven’t seen any company?” That’s the thing; there are many out there. You just don’t know they are dedicated to it.
HomeAdvisor is one of the best examples you can find on the Internet as it is a top lead generation company that has spent millions building its brand but also earned even more zeros for this same reason.
They started small as everyone else but invested in building their brand awareness to make people who are looking for home services go to their website and find what they need. They are over 75% of people’s first choice when they need those services.
If you don’t get HomeAdvisor that much or need a refresh, users need to submit their information to request a service and get a professional or expert who can provide it.
HomeAdvisor’s job is to share your information, which makes you a lead, with local companies so they can contact you and offer the service you’re requesting. For sharing this lead information, HomeAdvisor gets paid by the companies. This happens for every single lead they send to multiple businesses.
Business owners who don’t have marketing skills or don’t even know how to have any online presence will always rely on those pages to list their services. They will save time and effort, but companies like HomeAdvisor can make them spend lots of money as leads aren’t exclusive (one lead is sent to multiple companies after all).
Using Facebook Ads aka Paid Ad Platforms: Do They Generate Leads?
They DO generate leads. If not, no one would use them.
However, you need to remember two facts:
- Paid ads or platforms can be expensive.
- They don’t generate “natural” leads.
Whenever someone sees or clicks in one of those ads, over 80% of them did it by accident or are trying to close/report it.
Why? Because they aren’t looking for those services. At least not at the moment.
What those ads do instead is interrupt their time on the platforms. Users aren’t there to find companies or businesses unless they are searching for a specific company’s user, and for that, there’s a search bar. This is why it is hard to convert them to actual customers who will show interest in the companies’ services. Also, you’re limited by a budget.
When using lead generation, everything is organic. You aren’t forcing others to pay attention to your business but rather being there when they need you. This is why Google’s organic traffic will always beat paid ads, and the reason companies continue investing in it, which is a lot cheaper as well.
What Is Local SEO?
Don’t worry… I didn’t get it at first either. Following the short explanation, local SEO focuses on scaling businesses’ visibility on search engines. However, this is only for those who serve their communities face-to-face.
What does this mean?
Experts and professionals like painters, plumbers, and dentists (but not only them) offer their services to their local customers. Why? Because they can’t deliver them unless they are located in the same area of their customers.
To make sure those businesses get more leads, you need to rank them locally by claiming the business listing on Google to place them on Map Listings. Local SEO also involves online reviews, citation management, and how you manage your entire online presence in the local area.
If you are going to bet on lead gen, you need to adapt yourself to today’s world: The Internet.
Keep in mind that although traditional channels and methods like billboards, warm calls, and pamphlets still work, they aren’t part of your tools. Whenever someone needs a service, they go to Google and search for it.
“Dentist in Miami” or “plumbing services in Orlando,” etc. And you can keep coming up with services or professionals people need and look for. Thus, you need to make sure you’re using Google to get the companies in front of their clients.
Users will always click on the first search results (those near the top), and many of them will be either Ad links (people paid to place their websites there), Map Listing, and then you get websites. Almost all of them are your goal and where you should always aim to place yourself.
Can My Business Coaching Company Utilize a Local Lead Generation Strategy?
If you want customers, you better know you need it. Following the previous explanation, lead gen is all about placing businesses in front of their customers, choosing them over their competitors.
Put it simply – it’s all about closing deals and having clients for those companies to make money. The main difference with the usual methods companies use for this is how lead generation approaches different channels to get them in the right place of the market to get customers.
Those channels are all focused on the Internet as most people are searching for products but also services across the net. The issue is that the Internet is way too broad, and businesses don’t know how to place themselves. They usually try, but they get one common result: losing money and time.
How Powerful Are Organic Business Coaching Leads from Google?
For companies looking for customers, it’s everything. For you? Pretty much the same. When you build a business with digital properties, you get to make thousands of dollars a month.
This isn’t a “get started today and get rich tomorrow” thing, but it is HIGHLY scalable, and ROI + positive results are guaranteed. Learning a fairly decent and very needed set of skills to create your digital properties and start ranking them on Google is required.
I have invested in several online businesses over the years, and if there’s something uncertain, whether you will get your ROI or not, even more than the actual profit.
However, this business moved my earnings from five figures a year to a month in ONLY passive income while sitting comfortably at home.
On my laptop. Anywhere. Anytime.
You can look at one of the first sites I built back in 2016, and it continues making me over $1.000+ every month. The best part is that I don’t need to touch it or the rest I’ve built over the years, just like this digital property.
What Makes Lead Generation SO Alluring?
Here it goes: you can work from home.
The main issue with regular business opportunities is how much you need to invest in staff, equipment, or rent to have a place to sell your products or offer your services.
We all know the hassles of traditional businesses that involve regular expenses, which are extremely high. Can you afford it? I don’t think so, and even if you can, is it worth it? Now, it isn’t only about the money. You also need to put in a lot of work, and it isn’t only during the first couple of months or years. Usually, it is as long as you continue running it.
You can save yourself those headaches and bone-breaking tasks and expenses with lead gen since it is more about generating leads with digital channels—mainly websites.
Websites can be VERY cheap to build, and with many tools online, you get to do it in a couple of hours instead of days. Any virtual or digital business is scalable and won’t need constant maintenance.
So, let’s summarize this:
- You save money in regular expenses with traditional and most online businesses as what you need is yourself and digital properties (websites).
- You can bet on passive income.
- There’s no need to hire more people to get started.
- You can generate leads in multiple industries, which allows you to work on any niche you want.
How Can I Get Started in the Local Lead Generation Program?
Anyone can start and learn. That’s the beauty of this business model. I knew nothing about SEO, Map Listing, and everything I’ve mentioned so far. It is all about learning the skills, gaining experience, and deciding to take the step.
Remember that this business model will never get old as business owners are always looking for leads. They need to do business and scale their companies. Why not do the same while helping others and still making money?
You can start with this local lead generation course highly recommended for anyone wanting to grow in the business. It is a close training that will take you through each step and make sure you are able to get your ROI, profits and take control of your life.
You will be added to an incredible lead generation family ready to help you 24/7 when asking questions on the group. Anyone is welcome who’s willing to put in the work. Click here to watch the lead gen webinar.