Ep 202 - Why You Need a Marketing Plan for Your Life Coaching Business
Episode 202 of the Life Coach Business Building Podcast
In this episode, I’m diving deep into why a marketing plan is essential for growing your coaching business. From gaining clarity and consistency to refining your strategies and aligning with your purpose, I'll share my experiences and practical insights on how a marketing plan can multiply your opportunities for profit and success.
It took me four years before I really had a successful and profitable business. And let me tell you, having a marketing plan that I consistently followed early on in my career was the secret sauce to my success. So tune in to uncover the secrets to creating a roadmap for your business success and discover how thoughtful planning and taking action can elevate your business to new heights!
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Transcript:
Preview: Flexibility is created when you are able to plan in advance. When you're going to be doing your marketing, when you're going to be recording your podcast, when you're going to be hosting a workshop, right? You get to decide based on your schedule, not what is best for your clients, but what is best for you. Because when you market at a time that is best for you, the best clients for that time slot will be there. So don't try to first consider when will my people be watching me? When is the best time for a workshop for them? You do it at a time that's best for you and your people will show up.
Intro: Hello, I'm Debbie Shadid, the host of the Life Coach Business Building podcast. If you are ready to have more clients in your life coach business, then you're in the right spot. Each week I'm gonna teach you super simple strategies to grow your business without feeling overwhelmed and without spending money on paid ads. If that sounds interesting. Stick around and let's get started.
Welcome to today's podcast. We're going to talk about a plan for marketing and what happens when you have no plan. We're going to talk about marketing and profit because marketing is the ATM to your business. Marketing is the way that you drive clients to your business. And if you're not marketing, chances are you don't have any profit in your business.
But before we get started, I want to ask you a question. I was sitting today in church and I was thinking about where I'm at in my business and I just so overcome with just joy and satisfaction and appreciation and I was thinking about so many people that give up and I thought to myself, I wonder how long you would be willing to give up to work on your business until you got there. So I want you to answer that question for yourself. Are you willing to work on your business? Let's say four years for me, when I went fully online and I stopped consulting in person, it really took me four years before I really had, I would say a successful, really profitable business. And then really year five. And year six, which I'm kind of in my sixth year right now, I have to tell you, that is when the magic happened. And so would you wait, would you keep working? Would you keep your niche, stay committed, market your business consistently, which we're going to talk about today. Would you do that?
If you knew that you could be sitting today in a position where you really had the business that was beyond what you ever imagined was possible because that my friend is what is possible when you just keep working. So let's talk today about making a plan for your marketing. Let's talk about how you can create one that you can follow. I also want to invite you to my workshop on April 5th, where I'm going to be talking all about making this marketing plan today. I'm going to give you an overview of marketing and why you need a plan, but we're actually going to put the plan, the steps into place so that you can see what it takes, April 5th, 12 PM central standard time. You can head over to debbieshadid.com/workshop and sign up. All right, let's talk about planning. Now, if you're not taking marketing action in your business where you are consistently putting yourself out there, I'm going to guess you don't have a plan so often. And for so many years, way early on in my business, it would come to Monday morning. And I would think, okay, what am I going to put on social media this week? What should I talk about?
And I have to tell you the way that you create that dream business that you want to have and the dream business that I have now is because I had a plan and I consistently followed it early on in my career. Nobody was telling me what to do or teaching me and I didn't have an idea. I thought making a plan would be such a huge undertaking and I just didn't do it. But once I figured out that it was super simple, And that I can drill it down to something I could do in like less than an hour. Then I realized this was going to be the secret sauce to my success. And it was.
So today I'm going to talk to you about why you need a plan and what it looks like for you to have a plan in place. There is so much power in knowing what you're going to do. And I will tell you that you will have a plan for profit in place, right? Because if you know that you're going to consistently market, I can tell you you'll have consistent exposure in front of people. And eventually that turns into consistent cash flow. Also, let me just mention at this workshop, where I teach you the way that you're going to make your plan. I'm also going to unveil our newest coaching opportunity that I am so excited about.
I'm just going to tease it today. We are going to be offering what I would call really the ultimate thing that I have done in my business. That is the game changer and we're going to teach you all about it. If you're interested, it's going to be a six week, very affordable program. 500. Yeah, we're going to do it the first time for 500.
It is a way for you to work with me where you will learn my step by step process for what I have done that has made all the difference in the world. And it has actually kept me committed to my marketing, to whatever it is I was doing in my business and what I still do in my business. So having a plan for marketing is essential for many reasons. And I'm going to break down some of those reasons today.
The first thing is having a plan will help you create business clarity. I know that all of us want to stop being confused and we want to have clarity. And I know that because you guys keep telling me that if I could just get some clarity around my business, I'll tell you. When you map out your plan, it will help you define your business objectives. It will help you define your target audience or your niche. It will help you figure out what strategies you need to do to reach your client. It will provide a roadmap. You guys know, I love the roadmap. We have the business building boutique roadmap that we use with our clients. That will be the roadmap, your marketing roadmap will be the roadmap to your business success. It will be the roadmap that gets you to your goal. This will ensure that you know what you're doing, that you can have a clear path. For what your niche needs, how to communicate with them, and how to get an offer that is clear for them.
So let's first talk about having goal clarity. Before you make this plan for marketing, you actually have to know what you're shooting for, and I will tell you every year of my business I've had a goal and so I have to sit down and figure out, okay, what's my goal and how am I going to get there and what marketing am I going to need to do to get there?
Y'all know I do lots and lots of marketing and I'm going to talk to you about how to make it easier. In the beginning it takes some time, but right now what you have is time. Put the time in to develop the marketing that will create the success in your business. I will tell you, That talking about a business, talking about your marketing, trying to figure out and talking about social media. Talk is cheap. Okay. Action is what wins every single time.
All right. Let's talk about a targeted marketing approach. Now for many of your niches, you need to identify when the key times are to market. Now I think every day is a key time, but we have key times during the year when we run promotions. Okay. Because we're planning for profit where we have seasonal things that happen. And so our marketing fluctuates during the year. You will do this for your niche because you will know what their needs are. You will know what their preferences are and what their purchasing behaviors are. I'll use a super simple example, which is weight loss.
We talk about that a lot because that's something we can all understand. But when do you think people are most motivated to lose weight? Right first of the year and I will tell you what I have found with my clients is People don't typically buy the coaching the first year. They buy it after they fail. All right, so it's good to have a plan in place That will pick up after somebody has not kept their resolution on this new weight loss plan, on this new fitness plan.
That would be a key time. That's what I'm talking about. That would be something that would be tailored to your audience's preferences and behaviors. So you can thoughtfully consider what your person needs. You can also think about where your person is, where can they be found and how you will be marketing to reach them.
The number one thing that you can do to have success with your marketing plan is to be consistent to maximize the return on your investment. And I'm not talking again about a money investment. I'm talking about your time investment. You want to be consistent because it compounds. Yep. It continues to compound. That is how you end up four, five, six years later with a business that will blow your mind. It is because you are consistently delivering the same message. You were not changing what you were doing. You were showing up in the same place. And you were sticking to what you had planned. So the key is consistency when it comes to marketing.
A plan really ensures that your messaging is on point. You guys know that's another key point. If you do not have a message that is easy to understand, that will resonate with your client, you're not going to be able to market very well. It's going to be just like throwing spaghetti against the wall that everybody says where you just put a bunch of stuff out there. So make sure that you check in and make sure your marketing is consistent in the business building boutique. We don't just work on your marketing. We actually have an intensive mastermind day where you and I along with my team. We write your marketing message in one day.
This is the same message that people pay thousands of dollars to do, and you'll learn how to write it in one day. So you will have consistency. When we write that core marketing message, you'll use it in every other piece of marketing that you create. When you think about branding, and many of you guys know me from the Canva workshop, where we talk about creating a professional coach brand, that is key again.
So the message and the brand are the two things that help you have a memorable presence, even your images. I know there's always a big joke about Debbie and her red lipstick. And that is truly me. But actually that's one of the ways that people identify me. It's like they know and expect it to be that way. You guys will have something about yourself that is the same way, but all of my images look the same because that's how I look every day. So that consistency will help build trust with your audience over time.
Planning will also help you plan for profit and for freedom in your schedule. And I know we all want that. We all want to have flexibility in our schedule and flexibility is created when you are able to plan in advance. When you're going to be doing your marketing, when you're going to be recording your podcast, when you're going to be hosting a workshop, right? You get to decide based on your schedule, not what is best for your clients, but what is best for you. Because when you market at a time that is best for you, the best clients for that time slot will be there. So don't try to first consider when will my people be watching me? When is the best time for a workshop for them? You do it at a time that's best for you and your people will show up. All right.
I've mentioned to you about the time, the seasonal times, and thinking about what that is. It also could be lifestyle times. I mean, it could be football season, right? There could be back to school season. There's that fall season where people. Sort of, it's almost like the first of the year, they get back in the mood again to finally get back on track.
So what are the seasons to your business cycles? When you make a marketing plan, this is probably the thing that I love the most, is that when you want freedom in your schedule and you make the marketing plan, you know what you can do? You can repeat your marketing. That will allow you to have a life that's easier and honestly a bigger coaching practice because the time that you spend today creating your marketing when you use it again and you repeat it. You repeat the same workshops, the same emails. I'll teach you guys how to do that, but you're repeating the cycle of marketing. When you do that, then you have more time for clients.
All right, let's talk about measurable results. This is like, I don't know. As important as being consistent, you want to measure what you're doing. I sometimes talk to people on consultation calls who have literally been in business for 10 years or whatever it is. You fill in the blank. You've probably been in business for a while too, but they've not been consistent. They also have not measured what they have done. So when you set a clear objective, and I always talk about this, what's the intention behind what you're doing?
My clients probably get so tired of hearing me say that, but like, What's the goal? And I know the goal is always to get clients. But there are these micro intentions that you set. So what's the objective or the intention behind the marketing that you're doing? If you set those little micro goals, then you can track your progress.
You can evaluate the success of your efforts. And for me, this takes the emotion out of it. If you just come from an analytical point of view, and you look at what you've done now, when you see that nobody is watching your stories and nobody is commenting on your posts, which happens to me all the time, you guys. And yet I still get clients from Instagram. I'm telling you, you don't know what is working until you start assessing. So when you assess, you can do it from a place where you're not emotional, where you're not dying over the fact that that post didn't get any traction. Look at this from an analytical point of view and then measure the gain, not the gap.
Don't look at what didn't work. Measure the gain so you can take the drama out of what you're doing. Let me just touch briefly on gain thinking. This is again from the book The Gap and the Gain by Dr. Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan. Gain thinking is about looking at the progress that you have made, not the gap, which is what you did not get.
So progress is putting a story up on Instagram, and it is getting however many eyes on it. That you have. If it's 12, 25, 50, I don't know what it is. That is progress. You say, I got a post up. I overcame my fear about this. And now I've had this many people see it versus what you probably are doing, which is you look at the post and you say, Instagram doesn't work. It's incredible. If you measure your gain every single week, you will see progress. And I'll tell you when you see progress, You will feel so much more excited about your business because you know what you will think you'll think, wow, this is working. It's working. I love it. I'm so much more satisfied.
I feel so much more successful. I am on my way. So here's how you make the shift. The next time you look to measure your achievement, you look to see what has happened. You want to say, okay, where did I make progress compared to where I was? This can be in every area of your business and then stop and be excited about it.
We are working on a new project, a new way to introduce you guys to our coaching. And every Monday at 2 PM, we are offering complimentary business coaching, where you guys have a chance to come and get coached. If you want to do that, head over to my Instagram, and there's a link in the bio where all of the various things you can sign up for me, they're all located there, but every Monday at 2 PM central standard time, we're hosting free coaching. And what we are seeing just in the few weeks that we are doing it is every week I measure the gain. I write down the way that we communicated it more effectively. I write down how many more people came. I write down how many more people joined our coaching because of it. How many more people found value?
It is so exciting in such a short period of time to see the progress that I have made, to see the gain, because I'm not measuring the gap. So when you look at the analytics of your business, the data, and you identify what works and what didn't work, Then you can continually refine your marketing strategy and improve your business.
All right, let's talk about having the competitive edge. Y'all know I don't talk about competition much because I think that when you are truly in your unique niche, and when you are truly branded as yourself and you're communicating the value that you offer, I think really there is no competition. But if you feel like the market is competitive, I'll tell you how to have the advantage, and that is having a well thought out marketing plan.
When you think about your business, you think about the seasons, you think about the message. You think about how you're talking about your offers. You think about how to explain what a consultation call is, about the different calls to action that you can give to encourage people to come. When you measure all of that, maybe you're even thinking about new exciting places to find potential clients.
You're willing to try new things when you do that. And you think about how much your communication will improve over time and the reach that you have with clients. My goodness, you guys, you're multiplying the opportunity for success in your business. Now, my hope is that you will see the value of having that plan in place.
If you are committed to making it in your business, if you're committing to sitting right where I am today on this Sunday, so delighted in, gosh, in myself, honestly, because of the work that I did. Because I didn't quit. I'm so excited for what I was able to accomplish. And let me just tell you, I'm not patting myself on the back. I did it for you. I did. That's the last point I want to make about this. When you make a marketing plan, it will get you closer to really living out your why. And you know, my why is to help women just like you. I wished so desperately so many years ago, I thought, my goodness, why can't somebody help me? Why can't somebody tell me what to do?
Why can't somebody just show me? I would have saved, I don't know how many hundreds and hundreds of hours. I would have saved years of struggle in my business. Years. Remember, I've been at this for over two decades. I would have saved so much time, heartache, disappointment. Yeah. All of that was part of me getting here because I just kept thinking, why can't somebody help me?
That is why I do what I do today. I'm so inspired by that to make sure that your business journey is not like mine. So what is your why you have to tap into that every single day? I think about you and your business every single day. I think, how can I, in a new and different way, help you understand. How I can help you differently than any other coach.
I know you've already spent money on coaching. I know you've already worked with other coaches. You're not getting the result you want, and yet you're still listening to the podcast. So take this to your person and think about it. What is it that your person is not hearing from you? Are they hearing from you consistently? Are they seeing you in multiple places? You want to be in many places. Are they understanding what you have to offer? Are you showing how passionate you are about it? Are you willing to be vulnerable about it? Look, I just told you guys how hard it was for me. I could go on and on about the misery, about the tears, about the all-nighters, about working seven days a week, about how many times I failed in those early years to get to today. Yeah, you have the same story with your clients. Are you sharing that? So do not give up on the dream that you have of being a successful coach.
Do not throw in the towel. Give yourself the time. Stay committed until however long it takes. Maybe it's four years. Maybe it's five years. I don't know. Maybe it's one year. You can do this. And when you have a marketing plan in place, let me tell you, it's so much easier. If I would have had that early in my career, my goodness, we'd be sitting here in a completely, even more spectacular place than we are today. All right. I will see you on April 5th for my workshop, debbieshadid.com/workshop. You guys, thanks for being here. Love to all have an amazing week. Bye bye.
Outro: Okay, ladies, that is it for today. Before we go, I want to invite you to head over to debbieshadid.com. I have this incredible Canva training, specifically designed for life coaches where I'm gonna teach you how to use Canva to create beautiful graphics to market your life coaching. All right. Have an amazing week. I'll talk to you very soon. Bye bye.