Are you a coach who works with young people?
Maybe you’re an academic coach, executive function coach, ADHD coach, educational therapist, or some other person who is an edupreneur. You have started a private practice, and now you’re trying to find clients.
Last week I discussed the most important, successful way I have built my own business as an academic coach, which is relying on relationships with other academic coaches to send me referrals when they are too full. You can watch that video here if you haven’t seen it.
Today, I want to talk about three different ways I have created those relationships with other coaches in my own practice. My hope is that you can follow these instructions and create a thriving business of your own!
Three Ways to Build Relationships with Other Coaches
- This may be the most important one, and also may be the hardest one: Cold Calling. To use this strategy, simply reach out to other coaches, perhaps in your community if you want geographic locality (is that even a word, locality?). You can reach out to other folks who actually work with the same kind of client you work with or a slightly different kind of a client. You can perhaps look at folks who work with the same age group. Maybe they’re not all in the same vicinity geographically, but they’re out there on the Internet, so do some research and simply reach out and make an invitation to have a coffee chat or phone conversation if they’re open to building new relationships.
- The next option is to start a support group. This is exactly what I did. I started this over 15 years ago, before I had any idea how to market myself. I did it because I just knew that I was so effing lonely as a coach, working all by myself out of my home office–AKA my apartment–and I just needed companionship. So when I was doing the cold calling, I invited folks to come to a coffee shop for a monthly meeting. One of people who joined ended up going on sabbatical for a year and sending so many of her clients to me, it was a huge boon to my business! Plus, I wasn’t lonely all the time! Because we just got together once a month, it wasn’t too hard to fit that into our busy schedules and each of us benefitted in so many ways.
- The third option is to join a group. This is an excellent option if you don’t have the energy or inclination to do either of the first two. I happen to know a really good one, because I started it! It’s called The Anti-Boring Educators’ Club. We are available for you every month, and we’re a wonderful referral network for each other!
There is a caveat, however. If you come in and stay quiet and don’t participate in the community, nobody knows what you’re gifted at doing…so nobody sends clients to you. But if you come to our community calls, if you are generous about offering resources, if you are humble about asking questions and asking for help, everyone gets to know you and they start sending the perfect clients your way.
If you want to get a taste of my community, simply sign up for one of the free office hours sessions I hold every month! That way, you can get a little feel for what it’s like to be around a group of passionate, fun educators led by moi.
Of course, I selfishly would love for you to try #3, but you can do #1 or #2 on your own without spending any money to join my community (and my office hours are free!). I also want to let you know, if you’re like, “I want to do cold calls, but I’m too scared,” I teach a very specific process for how to reach out to folks you don’t know. When you come into my community, you will get to learn that process and get support putting it into action…so there are many reasons to surround yourself with a community of other coaches!
If you try any of these options, I’d love to hear how it goes! Comment below or send me an email.
Wishing you the community of your dreams!