Why coaches should embrace marketing

Marketing always gets a bad rap. As Gary Vaynerchuk often says "Marketers ruin everything". Many of the coaches I deal with through the Training Tilt platform have a dislike of anything involving sales and marketing.

Unfortunately, without sales and marketing, you can't run a successful business. One of the biggest problems is that many coaches don't understand that marketing encompasses a lot more than just sales and advertising. Many of the things a lot of our coaches are doing well is actually "marketing" even though they may not realize it.

Marketing is not "manipulating people into buying your products and services". Marketing starts with the products and services themselves.

I think of marketing for a coaching or fitness business as "creating products and services that can help people reach their health and fitness goals so they can lead better lives - and then building awareness of those products and services and making them accessible to the people that will get the most value from them".

The key word there is "value". Firstly your products and services must provide value to your customers, next you need to create awareness so that your customers know about them, then you must make them available for your customers to purchase. That's marketing. Not so bad right? There are no secrets used to "trick" anyone into buying stuff they don't want. If you believe in your products and services then you should confidently and proudly market them.

Firstly your products and services must provide value to your customers.

Next, you need to create awareness so that your customers know about them, then you must make them available for your customers to purchase.

That's marketing.

Not so bad right? There are no secrets used to "trick" anyone into buying stuff they don't want. If you believe in your products and services then you should confidently and proudly market them.

Word of mouth is overrated

When I ask coaches about their marketing the most common reply is that they mainly rely on word of mouth. Although word of mouth is an awesome way to get new clients because it doesn't cost much, relying solely on word of mouth will severely limit your ability to grow the business.

In reality, most of your clients will only tell a few of their friends about your business and only a small percentage of people they tell will then seek you out. So when coaches say the mainly rely on word of mouth what they really mean is "I'm just waiting for the customers to come to me".

If you believe in your products and services, don't be afraid to market them

A lot of coaches are reluctant to market themselves because they fear they'll be judged as being too pushy or "salesy". That is totally understandable and is common across all industries. I always ask them a few questions. Do you believe in your products and services? Will your products and services benefit your customers and make their lives better? Do your products and services represent good value?

The answer to those questions is almost always yes. The huge opportunity of being in the coaching or health and fitness business is the potential to improve peoples lives and in extreme circumstances change them completely for the better. 

It's as simple as that really if you believe in what you are doing then don't be afraid to market yourself and your products and services.

If you aren't quite convinced yet check out my other article on "Marketing and why you aren't doing any"

Suggested Reading

With the above in mind, now you need some structure and strategies to implement marketing in your business. Here are some other useful articles that should help figure out the next steps.

Three Step Marketing for Endurance Coaches where I cover the importance of structure in any marketing campaign.

and also How to Get More Clients from your Endurance Coaching Website

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