Leadpages recently hosted 9 master coaches and marketers in a virtual summit event entitled Converted: Clients from Scratch. Aimed at helping coaches, consultants, and service providers explore how to sell professional services online and book clients, the day-long conference covered everything from the foundations of a personal brand to sales techniques for premium programs.
In case you've been outside the Leadpages loop for the past several weeks and missed out on the live event, we've pulled together some of the un-miss-able highlights.
There are obvious benefits to choosing a niche and focusing on a narrow specialty or segment of the market. But that doesn’t mean you have to know exactly what to focus on during the first few years of your coaching or consulting business.
The most successful service providers allow their market focus to develop over time. Find something that resonates with a specific audience and build upon that. Clarify the components of (1) who you serve, (2) what you help with, and (3) how you do it. And most importantly: test, don’t guess. Treat choosing your niche like a series of experiments rather than a puzzle to solve in your own head.
Uncovering Your Personal Brand
Mining your own life, quirks, and genius to market yourself in a bold and unforgettable way
You determine the perfect balance of how personal to be with your branding
Find your ideal brand balance by sticking to a few basic guidelines: 1) always lead with professionalism first, 2) warm up your brand with personal touchpoints, and 3) determine how much of ‘you’ you’re comfortable infusing into your marketing.
Creating a powerful, memorable personal brand begins with a healthy dose of self-awareness. Only then can you uncover your core values, strengths, unique experience, and vital skills that need to be represented in your branding.
How to Become a Celebrity CEO: Smart hustle ways to grow your personal brand
Effective digital marketing doesn’t require that you do ‘all the things’
When it comes to getting online and growing your business with limited time and resources, where you focus your attention and what you invest in is critical. Rather than trying to be on every platform, narrow your focus to where you’re most effective.
Identify where a potential weak spot could be in your digital marketing skillset and set an intention to strengthen it weekly, with consistent, focused action. Then, when you’ve grown your confidence and capabilities, move onto the next gap in your knowledge and find ways to fill in the voids.
The Power of Emotion: How to create experiences people love to convert to
Emotions affect decisions. Decisions affect conversions. Conversions affect money in the bank.
Conversion marketing—with its fervent focus on driving action and funneling users closer to a sale—can sometimes feel like more science than art. A/B testing button colors, headlines, hero images—that’s all well and good as long as we don’t lose sight of the most important thing: the human beings on the receiving end.
Your web visitors and clients are more than just browsers, devices, and bits of data. The more you get to know them and understand the emotion that motivates their behavior, the better your marketing will perform.
How to Create Lead Magnets that Convert Prospects Into Clients
Use a 1-2 lead generation funnel: a downloadable lead magnet followed by a discovery call
Discovery calls, free consultations, and sample sessions are powerful lead generation tools—but how and where you position them in your marketing can make all the difference.
By using a lead magnet followed by a discovery call, you’re able to pre-qualify your prospects and focus your time-intensive one-on-one calls on only your most engaged, most likely to buy audiences. Not to mention that this 1-2 funnel formula is likely to both double your email list growth and decrease your cost of customer acquisition (CAC).
And, it's never been easier to create lead magnets that qualify your subscribers for working with you. Check out Attract.io to make your lead magnets for free.
Create Drag-and-Drop Downloadable Lead Magnets With Attract.io
Everyone in the small business space is struggling with the same core issue: building an email list and offering something that catches their audience’s attention and engagement.
Rather than peddling a downloadable PDF, more coaches and consultants are offering a short-form challenge group for prospects to participate in a virtual program, win some early results, connect with peers, and experience the value you—as the expert—have to offer.
Focus your virtual program on the issues and obstacles your clients struggle with right before they make the commitment to invest in your services.
Don’t just ditch ‘bad clients.’ Ditch the mindset that made you book them.
Your business should be a reflection of your purpose and values as well as a vehicle to have the kind of impact you want to have on your community and this world. What stands in the way of that? Often it’s a freelancer mindset.
Think you’re stuck in a #freelancermindset? If you’re taking on any job that comes along and morphing into whatever (and whomever) your clients ask you to become—you’re not owning your business. You’re acting like a freelancer.
Drop your hourly or session-based model. And put a program in place.
If your clients aren't getting the kinds of results that they want, chances are your services aren’t setting them up for success. Answer: what would it take for you to help your clients get optimal results? Then, set up your service-based products with that result in mind.
Don’t confuse your free consultation with free coaching.
It is not designed as a way to solve your prospect’s primary pain point. It is a vehicle to ask the right questions to uncover your prospect’s biggest challenge, to demonstrate your credibility, and provide a sample of the services you offer.
Missed Converted? Watch the complete replay!
Convert on Site: How to easily craft a website that does (most of) the selling for you
Word-of-mouth marketing will only get you so far in your business.
Having a website that attracts the right audience and pre-qualifies them to work with you is a must.
Skip the bells, whistles, and complications for your website, and keep it focused on converting visitors into leads and clients. Use a “take action, revise later” approach to your website content, beginning with better images, a handful of pages (home, about, get started, thank you), and opt-in opportunities to claim your free lead magnet.
Take the ideas presented from the rest of the Converted sessions and implement them into your website. Showcase your primary niche throughout your site (Session 1), using emotional triggers as the foundation for your copy and images (Session 4). Use pictures of you on your website that show off your personality and expertise (Session 2 and 3).
Join the VIP Workshop
November 7, 2019
Interested in putting all this new know-how into practice for your small business? Sign up for a one-day hands-on workshop in a small group format.
Be the first to know! Couldn't make it to Converted this year but don't want to miss out the next time it comes around? We've got an email list for that!
