Greg Faxon breaks down finding coaching clients into three sources: your immediate network, second-degree connections through referrals, and watering holes where your ideal clients gather. Start by offering free coaching to people you know, ask past clients for referrals, and show up consistently in the communities your prospects already inhabit.
How's it going, everyone? Hello from Riverside. This is where I live and it's the best time of day because it's just as the sun's going down. Magic hour. And I wanted to shoot a quick video today and introduce a concept that's going to simplify the whole process of finding clients for your coaching business. And the truth is we like to think about all these different tactics for finding potential clients and sometimes we get obsessed with those specific tactics and finding more of them. The reality is there are actually only three categories that those tactics fall into. And if you want the full list of places to find potential clients, I have that up on my website, Gregfaxon.com, you can download a PDF with 21 places to find potential clients. But I want to give you the three categories so you can make sure that you're checking the box on all of them and, and that you're not leaving people out there who you're just not connecting with that would really benefit from what you have to offer, that would pay you, that would support your business and that would be great, ideal clients. Okay, so let's go through these categories now. Category one, the first place to find potential clients is your immediate network. And I get that this isn't the sexiest one and that's why it's often the one that people overlook. But your network and meaning the people that you already know, they're friends with you on Facebook, they're, you know, they already, you already have their email, you already know them. Those are some of the times the people that we say, well, they knew me from another life or they wouldn't really necessarily have the problem that I solve in my business. So we write them off. The truth is, especially when you're getting started as a coach or entrepreneur, your immediate network is where you're going to make your first few sales. It's the people that are already close to you and you just got to go out and find those people who have the problem that you solve and go propose a coaching package to them. This is why in my group fill your client roster. I always have people put out a very specific 30 day challenge where they're offering complimentary coaching sessions to people just in their immediate network on their personal Facebook. That's how my business got started. That's how I got my first few long term paying clients. And that's a really key component of starting any sort of business. So you might be overlooking your immediate network. The second place to find potential clients is your second degree connections. So this isn't the network. It's not the people that you know right off the bat, but these are the people who you. The people you know, know. Right? So your second degree connection. So the best way to tap into your second degree network is from referrals from current or past clients or friends or referral partners who serve a similar audience as you. Okay. If you're not tapping into those second degree connections again, you're leaving a lot of money on the table. So again, referrals is one example of this. If you have any partners or colleagues who would also be interested in referring people to what you do, basically, referrals is the big one here. Okay, so the first category we have your immediate network. Second category we have. I'm just going to start walking here. Second category is your second degree connections. The third category of places to find potential clients. Take a quick guess. It's what Pamela Slim calls watering holes. Okay, so Pamela Slim, author of Escape from Cubicle Nation, great coach, talks about this idea of watering holes. And watering holes are basically places that your potential clients go to get their problem solved, where they go to get nourishment on that specific area of their life. Right? And watering holes are really important because we don't just want to go to any place outside our network for our clients. We want to only look at the place where our ideal clients are really hanging out. Right? So an example of watering holes would be a retreat or an event from someone who serves a similar niche or a similar type of client. Ideal client. It could be a meetup. Right. It could be a blog that also serves that ideal client. It could be a Facebook group. Right, but we want to find watering holes, places where ideal clients are already hanging out. And knowing where those are just comes from knowing who your ideal client is, how they spend their time, where else they're looking for solutions to this problem. Alright, so we have your immediate network, your second degree connections and watering holes. So how can you put these into action right now for your immediate network? You want to actually just go and put out an offer to your people or go to specific people who, you know, support you and say, hey, I, I have this solution. I have kind of this coaching package for this specific type of person that helps people who are struggling with this type of thing. Do you know anyone who falls into that category? I look like I have a halo light behind me and they'll let you know, right? Send out a family and friends email where you say, hey guys, I'm looking to challenge myself to do x Number of free conversations. Who do you know who would benefit from this specific type of thing? And then with your second degree connections, we want to go and ask past or current clients who we haven't gone to recently for referrals. Okay. If you haven't done that recently, it's just an easy way. It's the low hanging fruit. You got to go do that. And then watering holes. Figure out where your ideal client's already hanging out, go there and give them an offer, right? Offer to help them. One of the things that I want to mention as a side note is connections are everywhere. You know, connections aren't just in one specific place. Connections are coming to you every day. Either people who could be served by your coaching or people who know someone who could be served by your coaching. So one of the things I always tell coaches is you need to have in your footer of your emails, your website, or your little tagline of who you help and what you do for them, right? If you don't have that, someone might have no idea what you do. It's just an easy thing to get on people's radars. If on your Facebook, when I go to your personal Facebook, I have no idea what you do for in your business. Why would you not utilize that opportunity? Right? It's free advertising. It's a way to show people what you do and they might know someone or they might want to start a conversation and get help. Whenever someone friends me on Facebook that I don't know, that may have found me through my work or through my blog, I always ask, hey, how did you find my stuff? How did you learn about me and what specifically has resonated with you so far? So I'm taking what was kind of a weak connection and, and I'm taking it to that next level of intimacy. And if you continue to do that, eventually it leads to clients. Keep that stuff in mind. Only three ways to find clients. Again, if you need the 21 ways the specific tactics within those three categories, go to Gregfaxon.com and download that PDF. There's a button right on the top of my site. And I encourage you to share this video with people who you think would benefit from it. Also, if you want more videos like this, make sure you that you're following my page, right? Not just that you like it, but actually you have updates turned on, notifications turned on for these videos and that way you won't miss a thing. Alright, take care, y' all, have a good night and keep getting after it.
