How was your 2009? If your 2009 hasn’t been as great as you had planned, chances are you have spent a lot of time doing things that didn’t work, instead of doing things that would work for your business.

The best action you can take in 2010 is to start doing things that will work for your business and will help you bring in more prospects and more clients. To accomplish this, you need to stop doing what doesn’t work.

As I have been observing many women service professionals, I have noticed many of them making these three mistakes. I am inviting you to let go of them, while we are still in 2009 and start your 2010 without them. Doing this will help you bring more prospects and more clients to your business.

Here is what you should let go in 2009:

- Trying To Be Like Others. You know how it is. You see someone using a marketing technique, and it seems to be working for them, so you start using that technique too. You do it without spending the time to learn how to apply it and without spending the time to learn whether the technique would work for your business.

As a result, you spend time on using the technique, only you are not getting any results from it.

Stop doing what others are doing. Instead, find techniques that work for you and your business. If you love to do public speaking, use it to attract clients. If you love to write, write articles and blog posts to attract clients to your business. Find what works for you. It will make your business unique and it will make it easy to attract clients.

- Being Spontaneous (In Marketing). There are times when being spontaneous is good. But when you are working on bringing more clients to your business, the best thing to do is to have a plan.

Don’t jump from one thing to the next in 2010. Instead, plan how you will be attracting clients in 2010, and then go ahead and follow your plan!

- Making Marketing Hard. Let’s leave the notion that marketing is hard in 2009. When you think that marketing is hard, you are not going to use it and will not be able to attract clients as a result.

Marketing is not rocket science. It is all about creating a plan and using it to attract clients. Doesn’t sound so bad, does it? Make a plan for 2010 now and use it to attract more clients in 2009. This will simplify your marketing and will help get better results in 2010.

Learn how to create a marketing plan for 2010 that will grow your business in the How To Create A Winning Marketing Plan Study Guide.

Last week I wrote a blog post on How to stop treating your coaching business as a commodity. When you treat your coaching business as a commodity, your potential clients will compare your prices to other coaches’ prices and hire the least expensive one, because that is only way you are giving them for comparison.

On the other hand, when you stop calling yourself “business coach”, “life coach”, “career coach” or just “coach”, and show the value you provide instead, your potential clients will look at your approach and your value to see whether they resonate with them.

See the difference in these approaches? Let’s talk about how to create a value approach that will distinguish you from everyone one else in your field:

1. Define Your Target Market Very Clearly. It is impossible to show how valuable your coaching services are, if you don’t know WHO will benefit from them. If your current target market is everyone, or a very large group of people, you must define your target market clearly.

Defining your target market is the first step to showing the value you provide and differentiating yourself from everyone else in the market.

2. Research Your Target Market. Once you define your target market, you want to learn as much as you can about it. Learn what your target market wants, needs, and is interested in. What are they interested in learning about? What are the issues they are experiencing? What do they need help with?

One of the best ways to do this research is to connect with your target market on social networking web sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and learn what your target market is talking about there.

3. Define WHAT You Provide. Define the value that you provide to your target market and don’t use the words “coach” or “coaching”. The best way to do that is to find a problem that your target market needs solved and define what you provide in terms of that problem.

For example, if you are a weight loss coach, you help people lose those extra pounds.

You can learn in detail how to create your marketing message that will get you clients in our How To Create A Marketing Message That Will Get You Clients Audio Recording

More posts about attracting clients to your business:

- Stop Spinning Your Wheels And Start Getting Results With Your Coaching Business

- Coaches, Get Rid Of The About Coaching Web Page Now!

- Does Social Networking Work For Coaches?

Here is a mistake that I see many coaches make and this mistake is preventing them from getting more coaching clients and charging the rates that they deserve.

What is this mistake? The mistake is that they treat coaching as if were a commodity. First, what is a commodity? A commodity is a good or service that you sell, that is no different from anyone else’s similar good or service.

Let me give you a few examples of what this means, and since I love to cook, this will be food-related examples. When you go to the grocery store to buy sugar, and you don’t care about the brand, you buy whichever one is cheaper. This makes sugar a commodity.

When you go to buy salt, or pepper, and you are just comparing on price, this product a commodity for you. You are just looking for the best price, and nothing else.

Exactly the same thing happens when coaches introduce themselves as a “business coach”, “life coach”, “career coach” or just “coach”. When you do that, you introduce yourself as a commodity - there are many business coaches, life coaches, career coaches and just coaches around.

And when you do not differentiate yourself, you let your clients pick a coach based on price alone. When you have a potential client who is choosing between three different business coaches, how will she ever choose is all she has to go by is that each person is a business coach? She will choose based on the price alone, and she will go with the one who offers her the best price.

Instead, you should not call yourself a business coach and compete with all the other business coaches. Share what is unique about you and how you help your clients, so that your clients choose to work with YOU, and not with a generic business coach!

Next week I will share with you how to make your coaching business unique, so that you can stop being a commodity. Make sure to subscribe to our feed, so that you do not miss the post.

Many of my clients come to me with almost exactly the same complaint. “I am spending 4-6 hours a day marketing, and it feels that I am just spinning the wheels, but I am not getting anywhere. I have been doing this for months and have no client to show for it.” - said a life coach to me recently.

I find with many of my clients that when they tell me that they feel like all they are doing is marketing, but they are not getting any results, they do not have a marketing plan.

A marketing plan is essential for your coaching business - it tells you what to do, when to do it and how to do it.

Here are some things to include in the marketing plan for your coaching business:

Decide on your target market for your coaching business

An effective target market usually translates into a profitable coaching business.

One of the most effective ways to market is to market to groups of people at once. If you are a parenting coach and your target market is parents, a great way to market is to speak to groups of parents.

If you are a dating coach and your target market is women in their 30’s, then single women groups on social networking web sites will be a great place to promote yourself.

In fact, knowing your target market will make marketing MUCH easier. And we all want to simplify our marketing, right?

Start building your list

People won’t buy from you the first time they encounter you. And if you don’t have a list, your first encounter will also be your last.

With the list, you will be able to keep in touch with your prospects, build relationships with them, and convert them into clients.

Find marketing techniques to use, and use them effectively

First, decide on which techniques you want to use. Social networking, article marketing, blogging, search engine optimization, etc - there are many.

Learn exactly how to use them and learn which outcomes you should expect. Randomly posting blog posts, writing articles or posting on Twitter on Facebook will not bring in results.

Knowing exactly which results to expect and how to use marketing techniques to get these results is what will help you get more coaching clients.

Make sure to create a plan for all of this - you will spend less time marketing, while getting much better results!

Need help marketing your coaching business? Get the FREE Report, How To Get Coaching Clients Online

Biana Babinsky

Many coaches I know are still on the fence as to whether or not they should create information products. Here is a typical email I receive:

Biana, I am a new coach, I have only worked with about 5 clients. I have been hearing from many different sources that as a coach I need to diversify, create multiple streams of income, create information products and more.

What do you recommend to coaches in my position? How can I diversify my income streams and still continue coaching?”

This is a great question. Here is my response:

Your Business Is Still A Coaching Business

Creating information products does not mean that you have an information products business and not a coaching business. Your products are a part of your coaching business and they help you help more people with your coaching and create additional income for you.

The beauty of creating information products is that your information products help you reach more people with what you love - coaching!

What About The Other 99%?

Did you become a coach to help as many people as possible with your coaching gift? To help them use coaching to create better lives?

Truth is, very few people will sign up for one-on-one coaching. If just 1% of the people who come to your web site sign up for your coaching services (and 1% is a GREAT conversion rate, many coaches get a much lower one on their web sites), what about the other 99%? Who is helping these 99% of the people interested in what you have to offer, but who don’t want to sign up for one-on-one coaching?

You can either offer them a lower priced alternative to your one-on-one coaching, or they will work with someone else who will offer this alternative to them - you decide.

Best Part - Offer Products That Are The Best Fit For YOU

The best part about information products is that there are many types of information products that you can offer to your target market. Find the media you are most comfortable using and create a product!

If you don’t want to write an ebook, then teach a live class! Don’t want to offer a teleseminar, then create an audio recording. Or, start a coaching group. Or, create a membership site. Find a way that helps you share your gift with your target market, while still honoring your values and your gift. You will help more people, make a difference and create a business that you love!

For more information on creating information products, join me for the Make Thousands Of Dollars With Information Products Teleseminar Series

Biana Babinsky

Lately I have been hearing from many coaches asking me how they can use Twitter to gain more coaching clients. In fact, I have talked to quite a few coaches who told me that Twitter isn’t working for them as means for getting coaching clients.

One life coach told me that she has been offering her free coaching session on Twitter for months, and no one has taken her up on her offer. She decided that Twitter wasn’t good for promoting her coaching business and decided to move on to other online marketing techniques.

Twitter and other social networking web sites are great for promoting a coaching business. However, just offering your free session is not the best way to use those social networking web sites. You need to have a plan for how to use social networking to promote your coaching business.

Here is what you must include in your plan:

Know Who You Want To Meet

You must have a profile of people you would like to connect with a twitter - your potential coaching clients, potential JV partners, etc.

If you don’t know who you want to meet, how will you meet them?

Once you know who you want to meet on social networking web sites, you can look and connect with these people, instead of connecting with people randomly. Just doing this will dramatically improve the results you are getting from social networking.

Get People Interested

Have a good mix of twits - something about you, something that gives back (retweeting others), something that helps others (tips, articles, ideas) and something that promotes your business.

It is about having a good mix and sharing what your followers enjoy.

Social Networking Web Sites Alone Are Not Enough

You need to have a way to invite your followers to take the next step with you - subscribe to your newsletter, attend a teleseminar, etc.

Once people who meet on social networking web sites are subscribed to your newsletter, you can continuously build a relationship with them and introduce your products and services to them.

Use Features Available To You On Social Networking Web Sites To Let Others Know About Your Coaching Business

Learn different features available to you on different social networking web sites to promote your business. For example:

- Use Twitterfeed to automatically post your blog posts to Twitter

- Use Facebook Events to promote your teleseminars and webinars on Facebook

- Use applications on LinkedIn to automatically post your blog posts to LinkedIn

There are many different tools available for you. Learn about them and incorporate them into your overall social networking strategy for your coaching business.

If you are not getting the results that you are looking for from the time you spend on social networking web sites, stop and create a plan. Your plan will help you spend less time on social networking web sites, while getting better results.

Need help creating a social networking plan for your coaching business? Join me for How To Make Thousands Of Dollars With Social Networking Training

Biana Babinsky

Many coaches have told me that all they wish for is a full coaching practice. This was also what a client of mine, Linda, really wished for. She mapped out exactly how she saw her full practice - 25 clients, each one signed up for her 2-sessions a month package.

After creating a marketing plan, and diligently using it to Linda got her wish. She had 25 clients she enjoyed working with, each one was signed up for her 2-sessions a month package.

But, she was still having some issues:

- She wanted to coach only three days a week and spend the other two days on in-person networking events, marketing and spending time with her family. This proved to be impossible, because she could not coordinate the schedules of 26 people (25 clients and her) to fit all the sessions into Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. As a result she didn’t have the free days to do her networking and marketing that she originally thought she would.

- She didn’t have time to market and network - because she didn’t have her free days, it became hard to fit her marketing and networking in-between her client sessions.

- After some time of working with 25 clients she became tired and overwhelmed She hired an assistant to schedule and re-schedule clients and take care of all the admin work. While doing that definitely helped, she was still feeling overwhelmed.

- She wanted to work with more people, but she could not physically take on any more clients.

She started not enjoying her work as much as she used to - she was tired, overwhelmed and she knew that she was not doing some of the things she needed to do. She wasn’t able to help everyone she wanted to help, she had no time for marketing, and, most importantly, she started not enjoying her work!

Be careful what you wish for. One question that I ask my new coaching clients is: “If I could grant any wish for your coaching business, what would it be?” Many coaches that I have worked with told me immediately that their wish would be for a full coaching practice. Many coaches believe that the only way to have a successful business is by having a full practice. And this is not true. There are many different ways to have an extremely successful coaching business:

- Some coaches don’t have to work with one-on-one clients at all. Some coaches I know only work with clients in group settings.

- You can offer create a very successful coaching business by helping your clients with information products. Teleseminars, audios, e-courses, ebooks, study guides - you can offer these information products in addition to your coaching services. That way you will be able to work with very few clients one-on-one and you will be able to help many more clients with your products.

There are many more ways to structure your coaching business. You could membership web sites to offer different levels of coaching programs. You could offer a group coaching program and give your participants an option to buy a few one-on-one sessions when they need additional help. You are only limited by your imagination!

You are running your own coaching business, which means that you set the rules. If the current coaching business model that you have isn’t working for you, map out the coaching model that will fit you better and then create a plan to achieve it!

Linda in the example above decided not to take on any additional clients until she was down to 15 clients. So every time a client graduated, she didn’t look for a replacement, but instead used the time she had freed up to market, build her list and create information products. Later, she decided that her ideal coaching business was a mix of 10 one-on-one clients, teleseminars and a membership web site.

What is a model of YOUR ideal coaching business? Post a comment and share with us!

Biana Babinsky

P.S. Learn how to create your ideal coaching business at the online business mentoring web site

In the past year I have trained many coaches on how to use social networking and social media to promote a coaching business. As I did this training, there were many questions that were asked over and over again. I wanted to share the three most popular questions (and answers) with you:

1. How can a life coach(business coach, career coach, etc) find her target market on Twitter?

Here are my two favorite tools for doing Twitter search:

search.twitter.com searches twits, the actual things that people say. Use it to search on things that your target market would talk about.

For example, if you are a life coach and your target market is looking for more balance in their lives, chances are your target market is talking about “being tired”, “not being able to do everything”, etc. Search for what your target market likes to talk about and you will locate your target market on Twitter!

twellow.com search searches twitter members’ profiles. So if your target market identifies itself in their profiles, use this search tool to search for them.

For example, if you are a business coach for speakers, search for speaker, and it should give you the results you are looking for.

2. In addition to using social networking, a coach also has to work with clients, lead calls and create new products. How can a coach not spend too much time on social networking?

Schedule your time! Only spend time that you have on social networking. Only have 20 minutes in one day? Spend the 20 minutes on social networking and then go on to your other commitments. Don’t make your client work or marketing activities suffer because of social networking.

Don’t borrow the time that you do not have to use social networking. Do allocate some of your marketing time for social networking. Use that time wisely.

3. How can a coach get clients on Twitter?

This is probably the most popular question I receive from clients, colleagues and people I meet on social networking web sites.

Before we talk about how to get clients on Twitter, you should really understand the difference between leads and clients. Have you seen anyone take out a credit card and give out the credit card number on Twitter to buy coaching services? Neither have I. This means that you are going to get leads, not clients on Twitter.

What really happens on Twitter is that you start building a relationship that you can continue in other media. People you meet on Twitter may become long-term readers of your blog, newsletter subscribers, etc. As they read your blog or newsletter, they get to know you better and will become clients.

Want to learn more about using Twitter to get coaching clients? Get the How To Promote Your Business With Twitter Home Study Guide.

Biana Babinsky

A long time ago I met a life coach, let’s call her Ann, who charged $20 for a life coaching session. She told me that she used to do coaching for free for a long time, and started charging $20/session recently. She was considering going back to offering free coaching, because she said that “charging money for coaching makes her uncomfortable.” She didn’t feel that it was right to charge people for helping them.

She has a full-time job, and was coaching during evenings and weekends. She also told me that she didn’t like her full time job and wanted to do coaching full time. But she could not possibly do that, because the money she made by charging $20 for a coaching session wasn’t enough to cover even half of her mortgage.

Ann is a classic example of what I have seen with many of my clients. Many life coaches are afraid to charge what they are really worth, because they don’t think they should charge people for helping them. As a result, they severely underprice their services and are not able to make enough money with coaching to support themselves.

I have seen many life coaches staying in a full time job they hated, because they were afraid to set their rates high enough to be able to support themselves with their life coaching business. They thought that by keeping their rates low they could help more people and make coaching affordable. Unfortunately, that was not the only thing they were doing.

Here is how not charging what you are worth is holding you back:

When You Are Not Charging What You Are Worth You Cannot Take Care Of Yourself

When you keep your coaching rates low, you are not able to take care of yourself. You do not make enough money to pay your mortgage, buy food, take care of your family or go on vacation.

And because you don’t make enough to cover the basics, you must…

You Must Do Something Else - Take A Second Job, Work Full Time, Etc

Since the money isn’t coming from coaching, it must be coming from somewhere else. Many life coaches I have worked with had to supplement their income with something else - a second job, a full time job, etc.

Now your time and your energy is spent on your other job, instead of spending it on sharing the gift of coaching with your clients.

And as a result:

You Are Not Fully Present With Your Clients

If you have to work 30-40 hours/week in addition to coaching, you are going to be constantly tired. On your job you will be thinking about coaching. And during coaching you will be thinking about how much you hate your other job.

With all this going on, you will not be fully present with your clients and will not be able to help them as much as you could.

You Will Not Work With Your Ideal Clients

We all want to work with our ideal clients - those who pay on time, respect our expertise, are always on time for their appointments, rarely re-schedule and do their homework.

Many life coaches think that if they keep their rates low, their ideal clients will come running in. Unfortunately, exactly the opposite is true. The lower your rates are, the fewer ideal clients you will be able to attract.

In fact, Ann from the beginning of this blog post, told me that the reason she started charging $20 per session is because the people who signed up for her free coaching offer weren’t keeping their appointments, made her wait by the phone and never did their homework. She told me that the same was true with the $20/session clients - it’s like they weren’t invested in their coaching relationship.

Truth is, your ideal clients will show up when you increase your rates. When your clients are invested in your coaching relationship, they are on time, they value your expertise, they do their homework, and they put a lot of effort into coaching - they want to see RESULTS.

I am sure you know by now what I recommended to Ann. I recommended that she increase her rates, so that she can work with more of her ideal clients and so that she is finally able to quit her job and concentrate full-time on her life coaching business.

In the next blog post I will be talking about how to change your mindset and increase your rates. Make sure to subscribe to the RSS feed to be able to read the next blog post!

And make sure to join my business mentoring program to get help with getting clients for your coaching business!

I have been a member for a few coaching groups for a very long time and some of the most common questions I have seen there are about coaching training.

What Kind Of Coaching Training Do I Need?

Which Life Coach Training Do You Recommend?

What Do I Need To Do To Get My Coach Certification?

All these are the questions that I have seen many times on quite a few coaching forums.

The goal of the coaches asking these question is to create a successful coaching business, but they are not asking about that. Many coaches just assume that once they do their coach training and become certified coaches, clients will just come to them.

Unfortunately, that is not the case. I have worked with many coaches who have gone through coach training, but could not find any clients for their coaching business. Truth is, you can be the best coach, but if you don’t know how to market your business, you will not get any clients.

In fact, one of my clients a few years ago was just like that. She paid a lot of money for her coach training, but she could not get any business and was ready to throw in the towel.

She is a great coach, the issue was that she did not know how to market her coaching services. She was waiting for clients to find her, but that just didn’t happen. Together we created a marketing plan for her coaching business and she was finally able to share the gift of coaching with the clients who love working with her.

So if you are a great coach, but are not able to find clients for your coaching business, what kind of training do YOU need? Here is what I recommend you do:

Define Your Goals

Do you want to create a successful coaching practice? What does successful coaching practice mean to you? It means different things to different people.

Do you want to only work with clients one-on-one?

Do you want to design a new program for your clients?

Do you want to write a book?

Do you want to give speeches?

Do you want to create your own products?

Do you want to …. ?

The sky is the limit, but before you move forward with your business, you must know which way you are going.

Write out what you are looking for and where you want to be a year from now and 3 years from now.

Get Training

Based on your goals above, get business and marketing training. No one marketing training is right for everyone. Take a look at a few different programs and decide which one is right for you.

You can join a group program or hire a mentor to work with you one-on-one. You can read marketing books and ebooks, attend teleseminars or read articles and reports on how to market your business. There are many possibilities and I want to encourage you to pick one that is right for you.

Take Action!

The journey of ten thousand miles begins with the first step. Take one step TODAY - write out your goals, create a plan to market your business, take one marketing action that will help you bring in clients.

Bottom line: Even if you are the best coach in the world, you will not get clients unless your potential clients know about you. And you MUST market in order to let your potential clients know about your business.

And join MarketingSalad.com, the online business mentoring program to learn how to get clients and market your coaching business online.

Biana Babinsky