Get Inside the Hearts & Minds of Your Audience to Achieve Your Business Goals, Increase Your Impact & Boost Your Coaching Sales
Imagine for a second looking at your calendar, and finding every available spot full, up to 4 months in advance with paying clients that are thrilled to work with you…
Being able to pick and choose which speaking engagements you’ll be on because invitations are flooding your inbox…
And discovering that your group coaching program sold out the first day it was launched.
Sounds like a dream-come-true for any transformational coach, doesn’t it?
If you feel the sacred calling to be of service as a life coach, you most likely want to impact as many people as possible – but many times, when coaches step into the arena of launching or running their business, reality seems very different!
You see, there’s a critical mistake most coaches make (even seasoned professionals that have years of experience) that prevents them from making the true impact they desire to make…
And building the thriving business they know they’re capable of creating.
So, what is this “success block” making so many life coaches stumble?
Not knowing who they serve best – in other words, not knowing who their ideal client is!
It can be tempting to let our enthusiasm make us believe that anybody can be our client – everybody would like to build the life of their dreams, right?
Well, not so fast.
Because by choosing a specific segment of the population to serve, you’ll get to know more about their unique challenges, dreams and hopes…
You’ll be able to adapt your coaching techniques and tools to their specific situations, fears and strengths…
And craft a much more compelling messaging that attracts them to you, without being “pushy” or chasing them down.
Basically, you’ll uplevel your coaching skills, and elevate the level of support you’re able to provide them!
But before you step up your coaching game to better serve your right-fit clients, you need to know who they are…
How do you know who your ideal client is?
When you hear the term, “ideal client” what comes to mind?
If you’re like most beginner or aspiring coaches, the term conjures up a vague, nebulous idea – you may imagine how good it feels to coach this person, how fast they’re able to get results, the openness to your feedback, or their grateful smile when you help them spark a breakthrough.
The thing is, the picture above is incomplete!
Now, don’t get me wrong here – feeling a genuine connection with your clients, their dedication to transforming their lives and the fulfillment of seeing them achieve their goals is amazing…
But in order to get there, it’s much better to get crystal-clear on exactly who you serve.
And one the best ways to do this is to narrow down your niche and create a customer avatar.
Are you ready to discover who your ideal customer is?
How To Narrow Your Niche Without Guessing
The first thing we recommend aspiring coaches to do when it comes to finding dream coaching clients, is to narrow your niche.
You may have already heard about this…
When you start a coaching business, it seems like everyone is always saying to pick a niche – and with good reason!
The niche is the segment of the market you’ll be focusing on, and it will give you the “big picture” idea of who your client is.
Narrowing your niche will give you multiple advantages:
- You’ll effortlessly create messaging that will speak to your ideal audience, attracting your ideal customer with ease.
- You’ll position yourself as a leader in your field, because of the deep insights you have about the specific segment of the market you serve.
- Your coaching business will grow faster than ever. When you stand out from the crowd by specializing yourself in a single area, you become the “go-to” person for this niche – drawing more customers your way.
While many transformational coaches have a general idea of what type of coaching interests them, more often than not this idea is only a piece of the puzzle.
That’s because in most cases, coaches only think of who they want to serve – entrepreneurs, women leaders, athletes…
Or what will be the topic they’ll focus on – parenting, business building, or health, to name a few.
In order to truly come up with a solid niche, you must find the who and the what of your coaching business. An example of this would be “retirees launching their first business” or “single mothers looking to improve their eating habits.”
Now, how do you find your specific niche?
Think of areas where you excel, talents that come naturally to you. Remember the compliments people have given you in the past (many times others can see our gifts more clearly than we can.)
Come up with a list of different life experiences where you have gained insider knowledge that could help others – such as being an immigrant, playing at high-level sport leagues, or being a parent.
Take a look at what other coaches are doing, too – do you see any person that you find inspirational, whose mission lights a fire in you, or whose business just looks like so much fun?
Listen to your heart, pay attention to your longing and notice what you’re noticing. Your feelings can be clues as to what your niche is, and it will most likely be at the center of the combination of many of the ideas above.
After you find your niche, it’s time to dive deeper and create your ideal avatar!
What is a coaching client avatar?
The term “client avatar” comes from the world of marketing, branding and business, and is one of the foundational pieces if you’d like to build a thriving business.
There’s no business strategy that it’s complete without a coaching client avatar!
Your coaching client avatar will determine your business plan, marketing strategy and the products you create. Keeping your customer avatar in mind ultimately leads to your success!
A client avatar is a fictional persona you create, that embodies all the traits and characteristics of the person that you’d most like to serve – the client that would most benefit from your help, and in turn, would help your business grow the most.
Because you just picked your niche, you have an idea of some characteristics of your coaching client avatar. They may be business leaders, or health-conscious people.
But having a general idea is not enough – you’ll want to hone in on the details.
How to Create an Avatar
You don’t have to get a marketing degree to build your avatar – but you will need to get to know your audience intimately…
Some experts would say “better than they know themselves.”
This will help you create a portrait of your ideal customer – and one thing to keep in mind, a customer avatar is a single character…
You can imagine that you’re crafting the main character of a novel, or a video game – this character may share traits with many people, but they are unique!
The same applies for your customer avatar.
Don’t treat it as a collection of traits from your client base, but rather come up with a single fictional person.
To create your avatar, just follow the 3 steps below:
1. Research your audience.
You may start by doing some research about the type of people you want to serve. Search online and see what information you can find about them. Join social media groups where they share their experiences.
Talk to people at events directed at your potential customers. If you already have some clients, ask them about their experience working with you. You may also look at website analytic tools – there are many free options, and you’ll find invaluable information thanks to them!
2. Create a detailed profile of your avatar.
After you have compiled enough information about your ideal customer, it’s time to start creating the rough sketch of your avatar. Think of the basic information about this person: age, occupation, gender, income level, education, marital status…
And don’t forget to name your avatar! 🙂
3. Dive deeper.
Now that we have the demographic information of your avatar, it’s time to take a look at what makes your avatar tick…
Think of their habits, preferences and personal story.
What does your avatar fear?
And… What makes them happy?
What is their biggest dream, and their worst nightmare?
Ultimately, this will help you clarify why they would choose you over other options, and it will give you precious insight into the mind, heart and soul of your audience.
Start Attracting Your Ideal Coaching Client Avatar with Ease
Now that you have created your customer avatar and picked your niche, you’re ready to start attracting your ideal customer!
But crafting the ideal messaging for them can be sometimes intimidating. How do you reach out to them? Do you post on social media? How do you move them from “followers” to strategy session?
It’s ok! Here at the Brave Thinking Institute, we’ve been helping coaches all over the world attract their ideal clients and boost their enrollment in a heart-centered, effective way.
So we created a gift that will help you enroll dream clients faster than you ever imagined:
“How to Enroll 10 New Clients in Less Than 90 Days”
Inside its pages, you’ll discover the 8 steps that every successful life coach follows to enroll new clients. This is not your typical sales training – no pushy sales tactics here.
Instead, you’ll learn how to turn your genuine desire to serve those in need into effortless enrollment success.
If you’d like to launch your career as a financially thriving life coach, make sure to download your copy below!
>> Download your free guide here.
Before you go, let us know in the comments – Who is your coaching client avatar? We’d love to hear all about it!
Mat Boggs
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