Finding New Coaching Clients Through Partnerships

Looking to grow your coaching business? Partnerships are one of the most effective ways to reach new clients in any industry, often underutilized by coaches. By collaborating with complimentary businesses or brands, you can tap into established communities and create valuable connections. The key is building relationships that benefit everyone involved. Here's how to make these partnerships work for you...

This is part one of our nine part series of best ways to find new coaching clients. This is part 1 of our 9 part series.

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What is a Partnership in This Context?

A partnership is a collaborative relationship with a business, organization, or event that helps expand your reach by leveraging their audience and resources, while providing mutual benefits.

Who Should You Partner With?

Collaborating with other businesses and events expands your distribution within a community. For endurance coaches, this could involve partnering with local running stores, cycling shops, or triathlon clubs, as well as organizing group participation in local races. For example, hosting a 'Beginner's Running Clinic' with a local running store can help runners get started while also bringing visibility to both your coaching services and the store's products.

It’s important to consider and explore partnerships with industry brands that align with your audience's needs. For example, partnering with a nutrition product company allows you to co-create content or offer product samples that benefit your clients while promoting their products. Similarly, teaming up with brands offering training devices like GPS running watches, cycling computers, or heart rate monitors can provide mutual exposure—your audience gains valuable tools, while the brand reaches athletes who may need their products. Running shoe companies, for instance, might sponsor clinics or events where you share your coaching expertise while introducing participants to the latest gear. These partnerships not only strengthen your credibility as a coach but also connect you to brands and businesses that share a target audience, amplifying your overall reach.

You could also partner with event managers by offering free training plans that are provided to participants as part of the registration package, giving you an opportunity to introduce your coaching services to a wider audience. These partnerships not only expand your reach but also create a mutually beneficial relationship, fostering community and enhancing your distribution through trusted local networks. Event managers love to offer this type of benefit to their participants but are often stretched too thinly to be able to facilitate this themselves. If you can offer to do some work up front and make it seem easy for them, they are likely to jump at it.

Win Win

For a partnership to work, it must be a win-win collaboration where the value exchanged is similar for both parties. Before reaching out to potential partners, take the time to clearly understand the value you hope to receive and articulate the value you can offer in return. Businesses are busy, so doing this work upfront makes it an easier decision for them to partner with you.

Take the example of a partnership with a local running store hosting free weekly group runs. You gain exposure to new potential clients who attend these events, while the store benefits from increased foot traffic and the chance to promote their products to an engaged audience. Similarly, partnering with a triathlon club by providing tailored training plans for their members helps you showcase your coaching expertise and reach a dedicated group of athletes. At the same time, the club enhances its member offerings by providing professional coaching resources. For event managers, offering free training plans for registered participants adds significant value to their race experience, which can boost participant satisfaction. On your end, this partnership gives you direct access to a targeted audience of potential clients who are actively engaged in endurance sports.

The most important part of a partnership is first articulating and then ensuring the mutual benefits of partnerships to make them successful and sustainable for both parties.

Key Takeaways

• Partnerships must provide mutual value to succeed. Both parties should gain something meaningful from the collaboration.
• Articulate the value you offer and the value you expect to receive before reaching out to potential partners.
• Make it easy for partners to say yes by presenting a clear plan and doing the upfront work to save them time and effort.
• Mutual benefits and clarity ensure partnerships are both sustainable and effective.

Next Steps

• Identify potential partners, starting with existing contacts, and expand your network strategically.
• Create a simple straight to the point proposal template to use for each partner
• Customize the proposal and send to each partner
• Remember to follow up multiple times.
• Once you have your partnerships in place leverage them to amplify your reach with your content and any other promotions you offer.

Tools

• A spreadsheet to keep track of your partnership proposals
• Business cards
• Digital training plan templates
• A platform like Training Tilt for delivering digital content and training plans effectively

Related Blog Articles

5 Principles for Scaling Your Coaching Business provides practical advice on scaling your coaching business. Utilizing local partnerships is one key strategy in achieving sustainable growth, which aligns well with these scaling principles.

5 Stages of Customer Awareness helps you understand how to effectively target potential clients based on their level of awareness. This knowledge is particularly useful when designing referral incentives and messaging to attract new clients.

More in this series

2. Social Proof and Testimonials... Coming Soon

3. Content Marketing ... Coming Soon

4. Challenges ... Coming Soon

5. Free Consultations ... Coming Soon

6. Email Marketing .. Coming soon

7. Webinars and Q and A Sessions ... Coming Soon

8. Community Networking ... Coming Soon

9. Paid Advertising ... Coming Soon