Episode Transcript:

Welcome back to another episode of the BookYour Dream Clients Podcast. Today we’re going to talk about how to promote your coaching business for free. So sit back, relax and enjoy.

I get this question all the time because I work with coaches. And usually they're just starting out in the middle of scaling they're growing, but they're not quite sure. Maybe they're not ready to invest in marketing in their business. And they feel like they're running out of ideas on how to promote their business. And I think that is marketing is something we, a lot of us will put on the back burner because we're so busy creating everything. We're creating Facebook posts and we're creating content and we're creating a work for, or things for our clients, for ourselves workflows, all of this stuff that is involved in building and maintaining your coaching businesses a lot. And then when it comes to marketing, you're like, Oh my goodness, I don't even have time to even think about that. And do you realize that it is important? You don't know where to start and you feel like it's going to cost you a bunch of money to even make a dent in anything.

And that's simply not true. Because I grew my coaching business with spending $0 on marketing. I launched my group programs down a coaching Academy and I didn't spend any ads and I sold all the spots that I wanted to sell. And so it is possible. And I always am very upfront with that because I remember listening to podcast episodes with people talking about their $300,000 launches, a hundred thousand dollar launches, these gigantic six figure launches. And I would always think, how is that even possible? I had like 300 people on my list and I have no idea how I just, that just blew my mind. And I thought I'm never going to get to that point. Well, what those people don't ever share with you is how much they spent on marketing and the gigantic teams. They probably have behind them doing all of the heavy lifting, to be honest.

And at least the people who are just starting feeling absolutely hopeless. And that is not how I want you to feel today because these are seven ways. You can actually start promoting your business every single day, not costing you one penny. Okay. So this is going to help you. This is how I did it for many years. This is how I got to where I am. And I teach all of this stuff in depth in standard coaching Academy. But today you're just going, you're going to get, you know, the bulk of everything. I'm not going to show you how I can't, because you're listening to a podcast episode. You're going to learn what you need to do though. Okay? So the first thing that you need to do is first get a notebook out. If you don't have one, cause you're going to want to take notes.

You have to have some way to provide free content. And I know a lot of people, well, not all, I don't think a lot, but there are some people who are very aloud and saying, you don't need to do this. And I think those are the people who go live all the time, talking about this, who go all over the place, talking about this. And they don't realize that they're doing just that, right? They're very vocal about you don't need a blog. You don't need to have a podcast. You don't need to do video. And they're going live on Instagram every week, everyday talking about that. And they're going live on Facebook, talking about that every single day. And they don't even realize that that's what they're doing is providing free content, but they're not actually utilizing it in the way that it could really benefit them the most.

By putting it on their website. They're relying on social media to get out this information, thus feeling that they need to go on every single day talking about this, like a broken record, because they said it once and they got to stick to it. But what would happen if Facebook shut down today, Instagram shut down today, a youth, even YouTube or whatever, you would still have your website, right? So it's very important for you to have a content medium where you're providing free value to your future clients. Okay? Now, if I look at all of the students that I've gotten in the past two and a half years, a vast majority, I would say over 90% of them have come in because they attended a webinar, a free webinar that I hosted either live or evergreen, but they probably got on my list to get invited to the webinar because they signed up for a freebie.

That is how my typical journey will go for a student and even a client. They're going to sign up for a freebie. They're going to get on my list. They might be on there for a couple of days. They might be on there for two years. It doesn't matter. They probably got there in that way. So that's why having a free, free content, medium, a blog podcast, or video housed homed on it. The home is the website for your people to go to, to read, listen, watch is going to create that connection. So they will become a subscriber. So they will become a Korean slash student. Your end goal is we don't want to shortchange ourselves when it comes to providing content on our website. And I think that's where a lot of the overwhelm can build up is because we think, Oh, I'm going to, I have to blog every single week or I have to podcast every single week.

Yeah. Sometimes it can be a lot, but think of the, think of how a, if somebody isn't constantly in your ear or in the back of your mind showing up on social media, you forget about them pretty fast because there's so, so much out there. But if you all in the back of your mind, you always know, Oh, Lindsey's always posting a podcast episode on Mondays. And if she doesn't in the feed, then it looks a little different, right? Or if somebody doesn't post their YouTube videos, you wonder what happened, why they're not there and you and you go and search for them. And we start to count on people in the way back of our mind to show up for us. And we know that if they're in, if we're in a, in the back of someone's mind, when we're ready to sell something or invite them to a webinar or something bigger world, we're already warmed up with them.

So they're more than likely ready to continue on the client journey with us. So how do you choose a content media and well, you have to really first decide which one feels easiest for you. And probably what's feels like, Oh, this will be really fun for me to do so. Video does not sound fun for me because I, I just don't, I don't mind going live, but I don't have the creativity or nor do I want to have it to do like the really films of YouTube videos. And my house is always crazy with kids. Cause my kids are always at home with me. Video just is not in the cards. But sometimes when I do have the opportunity, I will go live in my Facebook group and in my office sitting in my chair. And sometimes I think, well, maybe I could do a YouTube channel where I'm doing something like that, maybe in the way back, maybe it's way in the back burner.

But what I can do is a podcast. I can sit in my office, I can record an episode. I can go on interviews with people and I can easily do that. I can work ahead. I could have that running for me. And that's how I can get in touch with my community as I can be in their earbuds. And that feels really good. That's why we've been doing it for years. Blogging is also a really good way to create content for your people. And it's usually the first go to for many people because they can just sit and write. And I actually, I honestly, I love blogging. I used to blog every day when I used to be a health coach years ago, I would walk every day. It's crazy. So my mom had a lot of stuff to read cause she was probably the only person who ever read my blog.

So she, she was cause she was busy and I, I burned out right. Every day is insane. And I had one kid at the time now I have three. And so blogging every day is like laughable. That would not even, I can give you a sentence every day, but sometimes I think, well, I know that blocking is really the tried and true way to bring traffic to your website, to put that content on there. Give Google a reason to direct traffic over there, all of those SEO things. But it's sometimes it's, it's just way easier for me to quick record a podcast episode. I have a feeling I would like to get more into blogging in the future, come back to it. Cause it does feel very homey for me. But it's, to me, it's the easiest thing to do, but it's different for everybody. Sometimes I'll go on a call with a student or a client and I'll say, okay, which one feels better for you? Cause we need to get one of these going

When they say video, I just admire them because that would never be my first go to. So bless you for being that video person, we have to have one thing. What can you be consistent with right now and be excited about? And we need to pick that because that will bring traffic to our website so we can promote our coaching business. Right? Okay. So when we have that, that's like the foundation of everything, then you're able to promote your business from within almost indirectly. So you're not constantly doing things like, Hey guys, I have an opening for a client or you guys check out my, my one Oh one page and see if you could find a package that works for you, you know, all those things. We don't have to constantly be shouting that we are coaching, that we're accepting clients. You don't need to do that. Actually. In fact, I probably do that once a quarter when I know my client load is as we're wrapping up and I'm ready for more than I'll probably let my audience know and in my email us now, but I'm not going to do that more than probably once a quarter or even maybe four times a year, three times a year.

It's not that often. And the reason why I can do that is because I do these things. I have a Facebook group, right? So if you don't have a free Facebook group started build one, cause that will create an amazing community for people. And it'll allow you to get to know more people and to see what they're struggling with, what kind of questions they have. So you can get ideas for your content, for your blog, video podcast, your videos, your Facebook group. I know it's so intimidating to start one, but just remember we all start at zero and you know, you know what, I think I've said this before the first two people in my very first Facebook group was my mom. And then my grandma, because my dad was like, Oh, I wanted to join too. And yeah, you guys, I needed somebody to be in my group.

And I had to call my mom and ask her to just accept this invite because I needed to get this, get this going. So we all start somewhere. Now we have over 2000 people in our group. So having a Facebook group is so key. I'm so glad I have mine. I love it. I check in with it multiple times a and because that's everyone in there and it's very important to me, we're allowed to collaborate, to share, to announce victories just to be together somewhere on the internet where we all have that common thing, we're all coaches and we all just want to help people. That's a very, that's a responsibility that I don't take lightly. The second or the third thing on our list, we already went through the free content and went through the group. Now we're going to go to the, the page, not your personal page, but your business page.

We need to have a business page. And I know it's like, Oh my gosh, how am I supposed to manage a group and a business page? It seems like a lot. And it actually can be really easy. So what I do is I, when I schedule my content on Instagram, I always push it out to Facebook page because then it looks like I'm alive. And I always thought, I always say, just put stuff on your Facebook page. So people know you're alive because when people are searching for you, they're Googling and they find you on Facebook. And if you haven't posted on your Facebook page in a while, people will think that you're not doing it anymore. And I'm serious. That's what I think when I land on Facebook pages, some of them haven't been updated in months, or even if it's been a few weeks, I wonder, okay, well, are they still doing this or not?

And I think that's why it's important to stay consistent. So it doesn't mean that you have to actively be going live on your Facebook page. I haven't been live on my Facebook page in probably two years. But I do post from Instagram onto my page. So it looks like I'm yes, alive because I am my home is on Instagram. I love Instagram. I'm gonna, that's my first thing. I opened it. I don't even have the Facebook app on my phone. Instagram. Of course they do. So when I think of the content that I want to put out on my Instagram posts, I know that it will fit in well with my page and my page. It grows every single day. So I'm okay with just pushing stuff out. If I have special things that come up like a webinar or some kind of event that I want to promote, I'll actively go in and schedule things on the, in the Facebook creator studio for the page, but I'm not creating separate a separate line of content for the page as a different from Instagram.

So recycle your content. I actually have a spreadsheet that has all of my Instagram posts that I've ever posted. I found this website that pulls everything up and I created a spreadsheet. So I have thousands of Instagram posts. So if I'm struggling with trying to think of stuff to say for the next month or week or whatever, I can just go and grab from the treasure trove of posts that I've done in the last couple of years. And so if you want to know what that is, send me a DM on Instagram and I'll go find it for you because it was, it was like, it took a couple of minutes, it was free. And then I had every single post on a spreadsheet, which makes me happy even more happier. Cause I love spreadsheets. Okay. So Facebook group, Facebook page, and now Pinterest, Pinterest is a beast and B it's a beast because it's, it's, it's a lot of work upfront, but it's so powerful because it will build your list for you every day without having to pay.

You just have to do the little bit of work, right. And proof in the last couple of days, I think it was last Friday. It seemed like my fee. I have a Facebook ad going to promote a freebie every single day for months. And it seemed like the cost per result would just jacked up way high, like six times as high as it normally is. And that caught my attention in the morning when one of my tasks is to check on my ads and I shut it off because they didn't have time to dissect and see what was going on. So I just shut it off. And then I was in my inbox the next morning and I saw, okay, my inbox is still pretty full of things from people downloading. And I thought, did I shut off my ad? And I did, but I realized that, Oh, this is, it was all just free traffic.

And that free traffic comes from Pinterest because I have a very strong game in Pinterest and I promote and I add new stuff and I do all the things that we're supposed to do. If I didn't have that, I would have to rely on something that I have to pay to move. And that's Facebook. And I don't want to rely on Facebook. I don't want to rely on, I don't really want to rely on anything by myself. So I was glad that I had those things in place. So when those times come where I do have to shut my ads off, I'm totally taken care of. I was at a retreat once last year. And there was a company there who primarily relied on Facebook ads to do all of their marketing. And when Facebook makes changes, it affects the, our marketing, right.

We can always kinda tell when something Goofy's going on and we're able to shut it off and rely on our it's like our, like our generator, like organic marketing is your generator it'll kick in. And when the, when the power goes out, right? So when the power goes out, the Facebook ads they, then they had nothing coming in and that they solely relied on that. And that's such a huge mistake. And they realized that, and they were kind of relaying that information to everybody. Like you guys gotta make sure your, you don't put all your eggs in one basket and you made sure that you're kind of doing all the things that will hold you up stronger when things like this happen. So that was just kind of a little side story on why it's important to have organic marketing and, you know, Facebook and your groups and pages.

You can still have organic marketing in place. And that's what I'm saying. Scheduling ahead, working hand, creating content that fits and will help your people. That's how you promote your coaching business. So if I just say, if I just have things out there talking about things aren't relevant to my clients, then it's not going to click with them. But if I'm putting things out there, Hey, here's a freebie that I created that you might like, here's, here's a blog post. Here's a podcast episode. Here is a webinar that you, that you might find helpful. That brings awareness to my business and to the things that I offer my one-on-one my program. That, that's why this is all there. This is why I do what I do. And I don't have to rely on, you know, keying. Somebody helped me make it happen. Okay. So Instagram, like I said before, that is my main place.

I would just depend all my stuff. I don't really like hanging out anywhere else. I just love Instagram and it's, I don't, I don't go live on Instagram. I think I've a handful of times, cause I, again, it's always crazy here. But I, I do have a very strong posting game and I share that with all of my students. We just recently updated our Instagram trainings to show them how I increase my following by the hundreds every single month, because I just kind of treated Instagram differently with a whole new approach. And it works really well. And I don't do the follow on follow. I don't do the legs. I don't do anything. I just, I just am a normal person. Imagine that, right. I always comes back to just being normal and things will work out for you, but I do have a strategy to what I post and I teach that because if we don't have a little bit of a strategy holding us up, then we're just like posting day to day with no reason behind it.

And so what I, what I will do is I'll look at, you know, this is seven days and I'll create a theme for each of those days. And then I'll direct my content and my images, whatever it is towards that theme. And then I will put it out there. So I kind of know after all these years and what my clients what attracts them, what catches their attention. And so I just keep giving them more of that. Okay. And then, so if we're summing this all up so far, we have the free content. We have our medium pick your blog podcast or video. You also need a Facebook group, a page Pinterest, Instagram, and then two more. The sales page, the sales page is so important. Sales pages for one-on-ones are very much overlooked. I see way too many times how people will just have a paragraph and a link to their calendar.

And that just blows my mind. Cause they, you giving strangers access to your calendar. You're giving tire kickers access to your calendar, which is crazy. I'm going to put a link in here in the show notes. You guys to show you that I have a new sales page, bundle it's called the Book Your Dream Clients NOW Sales Page Bundle and you can get the entire bundle right now for $27. And it helps you plug and play, play all of their responses, all of the, the content for a high converting sales page for your one-on-one client work. This page is amazing. You guys, it goes, step-by-step, there's even some bonuses in there like that Instagram training that I just talked to you about. That is one of the bonuses you can grab up if you want it, but you can get that bundle for $27.

So I'm going to put that link in here for you, because I think this will really help you. So sales pages don't skimp on those so important, even when I'm looking for help or some kind of contract work for my business, I get so frustrated because I like to look for a lot of work through Instagram. So if I want somebody to help me with, let's say a podcast manager or whatever it is, I'll type in podcast manager in I'm like literally doing keyboard fingers right now, podcasts manager in the search. And I'll find these amazing profiles. And it looks like they would be an amazing, amazing help for me. And then I go to their website and they don't even have pricing. They don't even have a sale page. Like here, just book a call with me not going to happen. My dear.

I want to know what you're going to do for me and how much I'm going to have to pay to make it happen. That is not fair for people to use that strategy, especially when it comes to Oh, when it comes to anything, don't make people guess how much you're going to charge. That's ridiculous. We don't go to the store and say, Oh, I really want this sweater. I'll just see how much it is. We look at the praise state, right? I don't know. We somehow think we can be just super sneaky online. And that's the problem. Be up front with people, be authentic. If it costs $500 to manage my podcasts, tell me, and then I'll get on a call with you to see how we can work together. You lose clients when you're not up front, you lose clients when you don't give them details.

You lose clients. When you don't look like you've been doing this for a long time. When you throw up a paragraph and a link to your calendar, you look like you quick threw up your website and you're hoping for your first client to come in, don't do that. And I know like maybe you have a different opinion about that, but I feel like I am qualified to give that one because I've been doing this for so long. You guys, it works. I mean, we just had a soak, a student who she joined a month ago and she just booked her fourth, new client. That's crazy. That's awesome. It's what happens when you actually do things the right way and you don't shortchange yourself because you're in a rush. If you're in a rush to get work, then you look like it and you look desperate.

So why don't you just look like, you're like, Hey, you want to be my client. You need to apply. And you need to show me that you're serious about this. That is so important. So again, I will put that link in the show notes so you can go grab that sales bundle. And then the last one that I want to cover is your email list. Don't think just because they got on your list, like you got them and you're not going to do anything with them because you're afraid to lose them, just nurture them. And when you're ready to promote something new with your client work, like I said, you can send out that quarterly email when your client spots have to be filled again, you can do those. You can put them through your funnels. You can send them to webinars. You can do all kinds of things.

Your email list is yours and it's golden. So don't think don't be afraid to email your people, okay? Your people, if they don't want to hear from you, they'll unsubscribe. And then they weren't your dream clients anyway. So email them, email them at least once a week, show them that you care, show them that you have multiple resources for them. Don't assume that they know everything that you have to offer. Think of all the things that you have on your website and create emails, directing them to all these different spots. Think of all the freebies that you have, the blog posts, podcasts, and videos, invite them to your group, show them that you have a page, invite them to your Pinterest, invite them everywhere, show them that you are everywhere. And then they're going to think, wow, she's all over the place. I want to learn how to be like that too.

I want to be in her. I just want to be where she is. Right. Sometimes they'll find somebody, somebody that you totally obsess over and then you follow them everywhere. Right? And I, I, I can tell when that happens, like I'll notice somebody will follow me and it'll catch my eye and then I'll see that they follow me here and there. And then they're on my email and I'm like, okay, they're looking for help. And I'll just keep an eye on them. And then all of a sudden, they're either a student or a client. It's just funny how that is. Like, they're checking you out everywhere. So you need to be everywhere. And when you're everywhere and you're being smart with how you recycle and repost and reuse, work and share, and you know, pushing your Instagram to Facebook, when you're being smart about that, then it looks like you would just have you, you're always covering your bases.

And you're not frantically running around with your arms in the air, wondering where to what to do and when to do it and how to do it. And what should you say? And then another day goes by and you do the same thing again. Okay. You don't need to, you don't need to run your business like that. Okay. So those are these seven ways. I think it was seven. We have the content medium. We have the Facebook group, the Facebook page, Pinterest, Instagram sales pages, and your email list. Those are all the ways. And remember that the Book Your Dream Clients Now Sales Bundle is in the show notes. You can go grab that. You're going to love it. You're going to get clients from it. Just go grab it and then let me know what you think. Let me know if you need help.

All right, guys, thank you so much for listening and I appreciate you. Please let me know if there is any thing you want on the next podcast episode. I love creating content for you guys have a great meet and I will talk to you on the next one. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the book, your dream clients podcast. I am so grateful for you, and I want to be sure you are a part of my free community. Go to dream client, community.com and join our free Facebook group. We have all kinds of cool things happening every single day. So don't miss out. Also, if you love downloading freebies, checkup, moon freebie balls on my website, by going to Lindsey, maloney.com, selecting freebie balls. And there you can download all the things I will help you start and scale your coaching business. And if you're feeling extra generous, be sure you hit that subscribe button. So you don't miss the next one.

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