When marketing your life coaching business is as life-giving and transformational as your coaching

It’s time to get out there and change the world with your coaching skills and big love. But you might not be the only coach out there (!), so it’s helpful to show us your mojo, the mojo that sets you apart.

You might wonder:

• “How can I demonstrate my coaching powers in social media posts?”
• “How can I show my amazing results in a newsletter, especially in a way that is unique to me?” 

Your marketing has a big job to do, but it’s easier than you think. Once you identify your unique way of making a difference in the world ( i.e. how you help humans in general and how you coach your clients in particular), you can create a powerful foundation for a marketing plan.

It’s time to claim your voice, create some magic, and get out there so you can help people!

A Holistic Approach to Life Coach Marketing

A few years back, I created marketing plans for 40 professionals in 4 months. I was testing out a embodied process for finding people’s unique message, brand, and strategy.

I discovered that each business owner had their own archetype of service, a marketing archetype. This is the indefinable quality that draws people to you and energizes you in the process. It’s that way of being you that everyone else loves too.

There’s no martyring yourself or being a gross social media influencer. You simply need to identify the archetype.

When I conducted this test, I realized that while there were some basics everyone needs, such as:

• networking
• a Facebook business page
• a website
• an email list

…each business owner also needs a driving force for generating clients. A marketing engine. A way to show up consistently that sets them apart from other similar professionals.

This would be a core strategy they could commit a little time to every day, and one that showed them at their best.

For one professional it was giving edgy talks, while for another it was putting her whole methodology in a book and then generating a webinar series.

Your Life Coach Marketing Plan Needs to Be Savvy AND Magical

Choosing how to get out there needs to practical, but it also needs to be magical. Your voice has transformational power. You have a beautiful way of connecting with other humans and helping them make better decisions. It’s simply a matter of identifying all this and translating it all into marketing.

For example, you might have a gift for creating community in events, or you offer rich insights with in-depth articles, or you give pithy advice on short videos. You might loathe marketing. But that changes once you make it a natural extension of how you do business.

Choosing your message and strategy well makes it sustainable, and this matters if you want to be a life coach for the long haul.

The strategy you choose might take some work up front to launch, but then it turns into an engine that requires consistency but not too much daily effort.

Life Coaches with a Steady Stream of Great Clients Look Like This: 5 Types

I’m always on the lookout for what works, both with my clients and the wider world. Here are 5 life coaches (3 are former clients) who market in a way that aligns with their values and gets them clients.

Each coach has a different marketing archetype. When I studied the archetypes of those 40 professionals in my initial field study, I identified 5 categories:

1. Nurturers
2. Adventure Guides
3. Door Openers
4. Steady Presences
5. Celebrators

Each type has their own “why” and defining mojo to get clients, five unique ways to tell their brand stories and market in general.

Let’s look at how each marketing archetype gets clients. You may even realize, “Hey, I’m a Celebrator” along the way!

Notice how each coach meets their community as themselves and makes it easy for people to decide to work with them.

1. The Nurturer Life Coach

Amy Berenson is a life coach who specializes in career transitions. After 20 years in Human Resources, Amy became a certified coach and began helping people with two challenges:

1. Finding more fulfilling work; and
2. Retiring well.

Amy is a Nurturer, which means she loves making it safe for others to thrive. She is great at creating sanctuary, which she does for her clients all the time. In her marketing, she creates sanctuary in her talks, allowing peoples’ best selves to come forward.

I’ve witnessed it first-hand many times, even on Zoom. Her message is “Silence Your Inner Critic,” a challenge she has found stops people in their careers for years sometimes.

As a speaker, she positions herself as a compelling expert and she shows her care. Amy also has a healthy presence on Google My Business, with reviews and ratings that help people find her easily.

As of this writing, she has a full practice and is gearing up to offer group programs.

Are you a Nurturer?

2. The Adventure Guide Life Coach

Elaine Blais is a life coach specializing in mid-life women in transition.

Elaine is an Adventure Guide, which means she loves showing the big, bold goals her clients could achieve. She sees what’s possible for them before they do, and emboldens them by being bold in her own life.  Her message is that mid life can be great, and she is a living example.

After a divorce, Elaine rebuilt her own life to become a thriving woman in her 50s. She has written a book about it, and does webinars on this topic. When she gives webinars and talks, she paints the picture of what life could be like, which is the best way for an Adventure Guide to tell their story.

Elaine is also a consistent email writer. Her thriving coaching practice is fed by her clear vision of other women’s lives, which she shares in her newsletters, social media presence, and webinars.

She also loves networking. Elaine has fashioned a way to get clients consistently by doing things she loves: writing, networking, and teaching.

Are you an Adventure Guide?

3. The Door Opener Life Coach

Andy Cahill is a transformational coach who specializes in helping brilliant, creative professionals live more actualized lives.

Andy is a Door Opener, which means he loves opening up new doors of perception for people, opening up new worlds simply by changing perspective. He does this by interviewing all kinds of creative thinkers and artists on his podcast, The Wonderdome.

Not only does he love talking to people who think differently, but the conversations demonstrate how he coaches, since he’s listening and discussing different ways of looking at things. His deep listening skills and his innovative and compassionate approach are on full display. 

Andy’s podcast and consistent email newsletter mean he has a full practice where he commands top dollar.  He enjoys his marketing as much as his coaching, and it shows him at his best.

Are you a Door Opener?

4. The Steady Presence Life Coach

Susan Trotter is a relationship coach specializing in dating, marital relations, and navigating divorce.

Susan is a Steady Presence, which means she loves assuring people they have what they need to move forward. Steady Presences do this with a deep well-spring of resources, network, and expertise. With a Ph.D. in psychology, Susan was a therapist for 20 years, and she thereby positions herself as a relationship expert.

Steady Presences do well when they geek out and demonstrate their expertise. Susan does this with public seminars on dating and relationships, and consistent networking in her wider community.

She also has a healthy referral business. In all of this, Susan positions herself as a calming, steady presence who offers practical insights on an area that can be charged: relationships. Her full practice and healthy rates show that people are responding to this.

Steady Presences often don’t like marketing, but all that changes when they find a way of showing up that reflects their true value (and values!).

Are you a Steady Presence?

5. The Celebrator Life Coach

Jessica Miller is a business and life coach, who helps women upgrade their money mindset and create successful businesses.

Jessica is a Celebrator, which means she loves to bring the good life to others, and she does this with her own special flair. When Jessica enters the room, it’s a party. The question is – how does she use that in her marketing such that people would hire her?

Celebrators often worry that people don’t take them seriously enough, so they shouldn’t have too much fun. But actually, it’s your fun that magnetizes us.

Share it!

Jessica does this beautifully on her dynamic, inspiring Instagram feed, which is filled with inspirational quotes, beautiful photos, “you’ve got this” stories, and all the fun she’s having.

She also networks regularly, leads networking groups, and helps people through social media comments. In one particularly active Facebook group, I see Jessica helping business owners and women with challenges all the time, a real force for good. She also celebrates the wins and achievements of her clients, and word gets around.

In her marketing and her client work, it’s clear that Jessica enjoys life/work and helps women do the same. 

Are you a Celebrator?

The 4 Steps to Your Life Coach Marketing Plan:

In order for you to get great clients by being you just like Amy, Elaine, Andy, Susan, and Jessica, here’s what you need.

1. The Nitty-Gritty Basics

You’re running a business, and therefore need to connect with your wider business community regularly. You need:

• regular networking, with memberships in at least one group
• a compelling website that shows your offerings
• a Facebook Business page
• a detailed LinkedIn profile
• a regular email newsletter service
• an easy way to take payments
• social media accounts where your audience hangs out (Instagram, Pinterest, and/or Twitter)

2. Identify Your Unique Mojo

This is about tapping into the true work you’re here to do. It takes time and fine-tuning to get it right, but the process includes:

• identifying your people
• creating offerings just for them
• communicating your brand in the most compelling way possible

You can start off on the right foot by identifying your marketing archetype. Are you a Nurturer, an Adventure Guide, a Door Opener, a Steady Presence, or a Celebrator? Knowing your archetype clarifies many things. Find out your archetype here.

Once you take the 5-minute assessment, look out for a short series of emails that include the Activation Questions for your archetype. These are designed to tell your best story based on who you are.

3. Choose the Big Strategy

You’re a life coach, so it’s important that you establish your expertise and unique approach with a rich, juicy strategy to master over time.

It might be writing a book, a mind-blowing talk, a series of articles, an event or summit, or something else. It brings forward your best self, just as your coaching does, and demonstrates how you help people regularly, emphasis on regularly.

Consistency is what wins the day, so you need to choose well. Your marketing becomes your working lifestyle (daily!), and can reflect who you are and how you connect with others.

Here are the 3 questions you need to consider before you choose.

• What are your business needs? Is it time to simply grow your email list? Do you need to attend to the marketing basics (see above) before you do a deeper project? Have you established a unique approach and it’s time to write your book?
• What is your marketing archetype? Knowing your deepest why will help you get clear on the strategy you’ll choose and how you carry it out. Celebrators often do dynamic events, because it shows them at their best. An Adventure Guide shows what’s possible in her talk, while a Nurturer creates a particular kind of sanctuary with his talk.
• How do you naturally connect with humans? This is key. If you don’t like speaking, it’s likely you can do other things to get clients. If you are a one-to-one person, smart, strategic networking will work for you. My recommendation is that you get 5-10 ways you love to connect with people, and then let these percolate for a while.  Your intuitive side will come up with the perfect strategy for you. Over years of working with clients, I have found that every client has had the strategy that worked perfectly for them. You have this too. Just let it come to you.

In my Compelling Expert 4-month boutique program, I go over these questions with each client in an intensive session, and I drum up a bunch of notes. It’s powerful to look carefully at all this stuff, and you’d be amazed at what bubbles up – as in, a great way to connect with your peeps.  

The right strategy becomes the engine, and you can likely sense it when you’re contemplating this decision. Keep asking these questions and going deeper until you land it.

What is your big way of changing lives and getting clients?

You’ve got this, my friend.

4. Be Unstoppable

The final thing to consider is your ongoing mindset. Several business coaches have stated that mindset is 80-90% of your business, especially during the pandemic. So you might as well choose an unstoppable one.

How?

Here’s a taste. Think of one great client. Contemplate what would truly move them forward, something you could offer them that would really make a difference. Don’t worry whether you can or cannot in real life.  Just have fun. 

Then visualize yourself giving them that thing. 

Boom. ​That’s a taste of the Generosity Practice. 

The Bottom Line on Life Coach Marketing

People will hire you for your expertise, but they also need to connect with your humanity AND see your consistency, particularly in your marketing.  When you make certain decisions up front that honor this, you create a marketing engine for good and give yourself a chance to make a difference while getting clients.  Your marketing can be as impactful and rewarding as your coaching so you get great clients on a regular basis.