One of the questions I get asks A LOT is ‘do I have to do marketing?’ – and I get it. Most of us don’t come into coaching to do a lot of marketing – especially when it feels icky, sleazy or pushy. So I’ve brought in marketing expert Vanessa Soto to show you how to feel a whole lot better about marketing your coaching practice.
What, you say you didn’t sign up to be a marketer? Isn’t marketing just sales and isn’t sales totally icky and the polar opposite of your transformational brand of coaching?
Well, yes and no.
If you want to build your coaching business, marketing is a must-do. But the good news is that as much as you may not have signed up for being a marketer, it absolutely does NOT need to feel salesy or icky or anything like that.
What your marketing does need to feel like is authentically you.
When your marketing is authentic, when it comes from your heart, when it looks and feels like YOU, when it clearly articulates who you are and the transformation you deliver – you will feel better about doing it, you will do more of it and you’ll get better results.
How to feel a whole lot better about marketing your coaching practice
A starting point to feeling both better about marketing AND crafting it authentically, is to get super clear on what your personal brand of coaching is by creating a Brand Vision. A Brand Vision is a summation everything that make up YOU as a “brand”.
Now, the word “brand” gets thrown around a lot. And I realize that while as someone who has worked in marketing and advertising for almost 20 years, I personally “get” what it means, not everyone does…. so simply put, think of your “brand” as what a client or prospective client thinks of, when she hears your name.
It’s everything she thinks she knows about you and what you offer — both factual (ie. what she knows or has experienced it to be) and emotional (ie. what she wants/needs/hopes it to be for her).
For example, if your brand were Tiffany’s, then the factual side is that what they sell comes in a robin’s-egg-blue box, and the emotional side is that, that particular robin’s-egg blue box equals the pinnacle of romance…
So what’s your “Tiffany Blue Box”?
What do you want your clients and prospective clients to think of when they hear your name?
What are the unique elements that make up your personal coaching brand?
What would your brand look like if it were a gift box?
The answers to these questions can become your Brand Vision. And once you’re clear on it, it becomes the starting point of all your marketing efforts — from your website, blogs and social media to your business cards, client thank you gifts and the types of people you might interview on your podcast.
Once you have a Brand Vision that is authentic to who you are, your marketing has a foundation. You aren’t floundering around, throwing spaghetti at the wall trying different styles of graphics, different ways of describing yourself or hating your website.
Instead, you’re just looking to the Brand Vision you have tacked up on your bulletin board above your desk, and starting from there!
So you’re wondering, how the heck do I create a Brand Vision anyway?
In keeping with the “Tiffany Blue Box” metaphor, let’s think of your Brand Vision as a gift made up of 3 integral elements:
- The packaging
- What’s inside
- What someone experiences once opening it
To get started, think about #1, the Packaging of your gift box. This is what your personal coaching brand looks and feels like, it sets the tone for your brand.
If your personal coaching brand were a gift box, how do people feel when they receive it? What color is it? Is it teeny, tiny and covered in crystals? Is it oversized, shiny and red and wrapped with a gigantic bow? Is it wrapped in handmade paper produced by a local craftsman, or in pristine winter white ala Martha Stewart?
Moving on next to #2, What’s Inside — this is YOU. What is unique and different about you and what you offer?
And last, but certainly not least, #3, What does someone experience once they open this box? — this is how you help your clients, the solutions you provide and how the ways in which their lives are changed by their work with you.
Creating a Brand Vision will help you get super clear on who you are as a coach. With it, you’ll start feeling better about marketing your business, it will feel easier to do, and you’re bound to see better results. To walk through the 3 step process, and come away with a Brand Vision that is authentically YOU, download the Brand Vision Workbook and get started!
Vanessa Soto is a certified life coach and marketing mentor to new coaches. A digital marketing expert, she worked with major brands for 20 years before shifting gears to coaching. Vanessa believes that building a business around something you love, should feel good and she’s on a mission to deliver impeccable marketing guidance that enables and inspires new coaches to confidently market themselves, so they can grow the business they love. When she’s not coaching, she’s busy parenting a teenager and keeping up with her Marketing School community on Facebook. Visit yourmarketingmentor.com to learn more about Vanessa.