Coaches Are Hitting 3,000 Leads With This One Strategy

So welcome everybody, my name is Robin Waite. I'm the founder of Fearless Business, which is a coaching practice primarily for other coaches, consultants, and freelancers. And I'm really excited to be here because I want to talk about something which a lot of people struggle with, especially in the business and entrepreneurship community, which is lead gen. So I'm not here today to talk about the Noah's Ark style of marketing, which is one by one by one by one, because that can be quite slow and tedious. What I do want to talk about though is imagine if that your back was against the wall and you needed something really remarkable to happen within your business, and that remarkable thing might mean needing 100 leads by the end of next week or 1,000 leads by the end of next week. So what I'm going to be sharing with you is a very simple 5-step framework around how to build partnerships that generate leads in very large numbers. To give you a bit of context though, I'm just going to tell you a bit of a backstory about how I came to be doing this so that you understand the concept of how I came to figure out these 5 steps, this 5-step framework, and how to build really meaningful partnerships. I've actually been in business, so I know maybe I don't look like it, but I've been in business for 20 years now. I started my first business in 2004. That business was a marketing agency, and we primarily did web design and branding. So I'm actually quite introverted. I like to be behind the scenes, behind a computer typically, or I did certainly back then. And I ran that agency for 12 years. By the end of it, we had about 250 clients. We were a very successful small local agency, but I was getting into my early 30s and children were starting to come onto the scene, and the all-nighters and the demanding clients and several other factors kind of didn't really align with that lifestyle. So I made a decision in 2016 to exit that agency. It's very fortunate that at the time somebody came along and made me an offer for the client base and some of the intellectual property within that business. We've been quite innovative, and in fact, a couple of the things which I might be sharing with you, we actually put into our agency in those latter sort of stages. from a strategy perspective, but I may not have time to go into those in a great amount of detail. But anyway, 2016, sold the agency, and I started informally mentoring other agency owners who'd heard that I'd sold and they wanted to do something similar. And that— so that's kind of rewinding the clock now 8 years. And when I started my coaching practice, because I had to formalize it really in 2017, and when people kept saying to me, what are you doing? I was like, well, I'm not really doing anything. It didn't actually look terribly professional, so I had to formalize it in the form of a coaching practice, which is Fearless Business, which is what I do now and I haven't looked back. I'm so fortunate to have found coaching. Firstly, I get to work with some amazing people, not least talking from the stage and on podcast interviews and online summits and things like that, but also my clients that I get to work with. But I took very traditional sort of routes when it came to marketing my coaching practice. A lot of hard work, a lot of heavy lifting, a lot of what all of the gurus and experts kind of tell you these days around social media and short-form and long-form video content marketing with blogging. So I was doing all of these things, which I'm not suggesting necessarily that you don't do these things. But I think there are, um, ways that you can market your business that are much more impactful, that will generate you leads en masse, rather than it being sort of one by one by one, that Noah's Ark marketing which I mentioned, actually generating you large numbers of leads sort of, um, en masse. So I'm gonna fast forward another 3 years now into, um, COVID. And actually, I was a bit of unfair advantage. I was invited to go on to a mastermind with, um, 6 other guys and there was a couple of YouTubers on there, a couple of coaches, a couple of authors. We all ran similar sort of businesses, lifestyle-type businesses. And one of those happened to be a guy called Ali Abdaal. Now you're welcome to go and Google Ali Abdaal and probably you'll find his YouTube channel, which currently I think today stands at just under 6 million subscribers. So he's got quite a large number of subscribers and he's actually best known in the industry, um, his subject matter is productivity. But anyway, when I met him several years ago, 4 years ago during lockdown, he only had about 800,000 subscribers and he was about to launch sort of a passive income product, basically a do-it-yourself course online. I was like, whoa, hold your horses. One thing I know a lot about is personal branding. So through things like speaking engagements, podcast interviews, and I have several books as well. So I was trying to explain to Ali that one of the ways to add value when it comes to doing courses is actually to make people follow Ali because of who he is. And so if he sold a DIY course, it's kind of really devaluing what he was doing. And so he needed this more kind of remarkable marketing asset. So actually what we did is we— I ended up helping him to design this 6-week sort of hybrid course which involved some of him coaching but also the DIY side of it. And he ended up doing a $650,000 launch, and that's just on the first cohort. And that's gone on to generate sort of, I think, somewhere in the order of about $15 million worth of sales. It's called Part-Time YouTuber Academy. How does this fit in with partnerships? Well, I just really loved hanging out with the guy. So, and this is my first out of the 5 steps in the framework, the partnership framework, which I'm going to share with you. This is kind kind of the first one. You have to be intentional. I kind of started out that relationship as it kind of— he was just fun to hang out with. As his team grew, it was nice hanging out with his team, and I'd go down and meet him and, and go to his events and things like that. But I wasn't particularly intentional around it, and I could see all this amazing stuff happening to Ali. And, um, there were other people who were in that mastermind and in Ali's world who were kind of coming in and out of his world but with a lot more focus. And so They seem to be appearing on Ali's videos. They seem to be being invited to be guests on his podcast. The podcast is called Deep Dive if you wanna check it out. And I just was— I realized I just wasn't being intentional about it. And it was actually one of the other chaps on the Mastermind who pointed this out to me, 'cause it was a guy called Simon Alexander Ong. He kept on having these photographs taken with really well-known people like Simon Sinek and— I'm trying to think of some others now— Daniel Priestley and all these like really amazing entrepreneurs. And I was like, how do you do that, Simon? And annoyingly, he didn't tell me. He wouldn't tell me like what his process was to get it done. But what he did tell me was like really helpful. He said, Robin, just just observe me. Watch what I do. And as I was observing him, I I started to realize that when he the events which he showed up to, he was hyper intentional about it because he always made sure that whoever was speaking at that event, he always made a beeline for them and and had a selfie taken with them. I could see that he was being really proactive in how he was supporting them online in terms of their content. So and it was with these few select people. It wasn't like random. It wasn't like loads of different people. It was only a a handful of really select people that he was choosing to kind of invest his time into. And up until this point, I'd been spending— you could spend like 20, 30, 40 hours a week grinding out social media, doing videos and short form, long form, posting on Twitter and LinkedIn and blogging and all this sort of stuff. But he seemed to just be having a lot of fun going and meeting these really cool people and taking selfies with them. So I was like, right, I'm going to be hyper intentional now. And this was at the start of 2023. So in January 1st, 2023, I decided, right, I'm going to stop all of the forms of marketing which I'm currently doing. And really heavily focus on this partnership framework that I can see Simon and several select other people doing. So being intentional, I wrote a list of, at the time, 10 people that I just thought I would love to be a partner of in some way, shape, or form in their world. I didn't know exactly what that might look like, but I knew that if hanging out with them was going to be really great fun, they were doing great things, but I would make sure that wherever they were, I would show up in their world. So this is step 2 in the framework. So after being intentional and identifying who it is that you would love to partner up with, the second step then is to make sure that you physically show up in their world. So if they put on an event, make sure, you know, if they're speaking somewhere, if they're at an event, or if maybe they're putting a dinner, a supper on, or something like that, go and support them. Go and be at those events. If you have to pay, pay. Show up in their world. But the thing is as well, being intentional and showing up in their world isn't often enough, because you don't just want to be a passenger sat at the back passively listening into what they're saying. Make sure that at the end of the event, or at some point during the event, you actually go up to them and you say, Hi, I really enjoyed your talk. I really love following your content. What you're doing is really remarkable. Pay them, you know, pay it forward with a bit of gratitude. Would it be okay if I could take a selfie with you? So actually do something intentional, fun, have a selfie with them. I recently went to see Diary of a CEO founder Stephen Bartlett, and I paid the extra for the VIP ticket, and it was one of the greatest pleasures for me to actually have a couple of words with him, listen to what he had to say, and then we had a photo taken together. I'm like super proud of that. So be intentional, make sure you're showing up at those events. The 3rd step that I would add into this, and you'll see how this links to how I then leverage this partnership model to generate a lot of leads. I'm kind of— that's going to be the punchline at the end of the talk. So do stick around to make sure that you also hear how it all kind of came together for me and how I'm able to also now do this on repeat. This isn't just like a one-time thing. This is something now that now I know these 5 steps I'm able to do over and over again. And actually one of the biggest benefits of it, where I was spending 20 to 40 hours a week doing the traditional form of marketing. I could probably invest maybe 4 to 5 hours a week on average into partnerships and get 10 times the results back. So the power of partnerships is huge if you, if you do it well. Okay, so you're at these events, you're showing up, you're being intentional. So we've covered off the first 2 steps. Step number 3 though is to make sure that you're there being helpful and that you're adding value, because again, you don't just want to be a passenger, but you also don't just want to like hero worship these people that you would love to form the partnerships with and have a selfie with them. I discovered this entirely by accident at an event. There's this amazing creator, a guy called Chris Do. His brand is called The Futurist. It's a wonderful YouTube channel. I think he's got about 2.5 million subscribers. So he's on the list as well. Chris, if you're watching this now, you know you're on the list. And I saw that Chris was gonna be at an event in London, and I noticed like part of Chris's content structure is all around like having these guerrilla-style— like he gets people sat around in these really cool venues, and then he'll invite somebody up to do some coaching, and then they'll, they'll just be chatting, like doing some coaching, and they, they film it, and that becomes part of his content plan for his brand. So I'm there at this event, there's 100-odd plus people around, and they're about to kick off. Chris comes in and somebody's scratching around for a camera, but there's no microphone. So, um, I took it on my own back. He didn't ask me. He didn't really know who he was at that— he probably didn't know who I was really at that point. Well, I didn't— I assumed he didn't really know much about me. Ever since one of the events I went to before that, I'd started taking my mobile microphone kit, me lav mic kit with me, and it's got handheld as well. And I happened to have it with me in London, so any event I go to, I now take this kit with me. So I put it together, handed the receiver to the guy with the microphone, and then I started handing the microphone around as people started doing the questions. So I just showed up, I was there excited, this amazing person like about to deliver this talk, there's all these people, and there's me like bimbling around the audience with this microphone making sure that they're capturing good quality audio. And I thought nothing of it. I just liked the guy and wanted to be helpful. Anyway, about 2/3 of the way through the evening, Chris points at me and he says, hey, give it up for Robin. So he knew my name. That was pretty cool. Give it up for Robin. He's been bimbling around with the microphone. Just say thank you to him. Oh, and by the way, folks, he's got this really cool book. You should all go and buy it. And then he said something really cool, because part of my strategy is all around sort of guesting on other people's podcasts. So he knew this because when I met up with him previously, I think about 6 months before that I kind of mooted, oh, it'd be wonderful, yeah, I'd love— one of my ambitions is to be on the Future Podcast. I asked Robin, Robin's gonna be on the podcast one day? And he said, Robin, and this is in front of 150 people, the only reason why I haven't had you on the podcast yet, um, is because I haven't finished reading your book just yet, he said. But when I've finished reading your book, we'll have a conversation and we'll make sure that we get you on there. So that's like really cool to get acknowledged in that way. But that was just because step number 3, I showed up and I was being helpful, adding value, and I didn't expect anything in return. Sometimes these events and things that you go to should just be a pleasure for being there, not because you have to get anything back from it. Another lesson which I've learned this year off— I keep name-dropping, I hope you don't mind, folks, but these are people who I find really inspirational, so if you check them out, you might too. But there's a guy called Simon Squibb who's kind of— one of his taglines is give without take. And I've really taken that up since I made this decision at the start of 2023 that I would just show up and be abundant, not just in the partnership side of things, but just generally like give as much value back to it as can to the sort of small business and entrepreneurship community. So in passing the mic around, hey, they get some good quality video and audio that helps a whole load of generation of other people on like YouTube, on Chris's YouTube channel. And it's really easy as well. It costs nothing. It takes no effort. It's just, you know, show up and be helpful. So, so what have we got so far? We've got be intentional, step number 1. Step number 2 is be in the same room as these people. And step number 3 is show up and add value and be helpful. Other ways to add value, if you see on things like LinkedIn and Twitter, there's a little bell notification. So when you follow your idols, you can hit the bell notification. And so whenever they post a new piece of content, you'll get a notification pop up in your feed. It's just so simple. So if there are people on your intentional hit list who you'd love to form partnerships with, go and switch on the bell icons. And then every time they post, just jump on there and comment on it, repost it, like be really supportive of their content. I'm quite selective. I'll pick the pieces of content I genuinely believe are helpful and valuable to my audience, so I'll share them then with my audience. But it helps boost their profile, and that will also help to get you noticed. The 4th step Find your inside man or woman, right? Like Ali now, Ali Abdaal now, for example, he's, he's got a big following and he's got to the point where he's like super busy, but he's got a team of 15 people. It's hard to get to Ali despite the fact we're friends, you know. He will respond to me in WhatsApp, but he's so busy, like with so much stuff going on. Same with Simon Squibb, same with Christo, same with all of the people who you probably want to partner up with. So save yourself a bit of worry and stress. Don't go straight to the head honcho. You'll get to speak to them eventually, but go and get to know their team. Don't forget, like, these people you're trying to form partnerships with, their team are busy watching them and they're not getting any attention. So if you start to show them some attention and start to get to know a little bit about them and what their business interests are or personal interests are, it's going to be a really big compliment to them. They're going to feel quite special. So it's really worthwhile getting to know the team of the person that you're trying to— or brand that you're trying to partner up with. And be strategic about it. You don't wanna like befriend everybody, but there'll be a couple of people who will carry a little bit more influence within, you know, with that person. So find your inside man or woman, show up with them, be helpful with them. So take Ali, for example. I'm helping some of his team out from a coaching perspective, 'cause many of them are freelancers. It fits right into my sweet spot of the types of clients that I like to work with. And so I'm able just to have like deliver some coaching to them. Ali's got a couple of coaches already, so he doesn't need any more business coaches in me, but I can work with his team. And the nice thing about that is, is my name pops up during their conversations when they're sort of speaking, you know, and they go to their company retreats and things like that. So get to know the team members. The final step is then to have the silver platter. So step number 5, offer the silver platter to your partner. So as I've started to now create these amazing new relationships with people who, in my mind, it felt like a couple of years ago they were possibly unattainable, now I've started to network with these really influential people. And I've noticed, for example, like Chris Do's not been on Ali Abdaal's podcast If I can bring the two of them together and hand them to each other on a silver platter, that's like a really fantastic way for me to add value to both of those guys' lives without it really costing me anything or taking any much effort. And I know then that combined, like Ali's 5.6 million followers and Christo's 2.4 million followers getting to know one another is like a match made in heaven. So bringing together other partnerships on a silver platter is like a really great way to endorse those relationships and the partnership. So what's the upside of all of this? I'm guessing you're all thinking, right? What does partnerships have to do with the 3,000 leads that, you know, I generated? So it took me 18 months of nurturing— well, sorry, actually this was last year. So the first 6 months of 2023 of nurturing that relationship with Ali Abdaal. I knew though, because of my relationships with my inside man at Ali's HQ, that they record in batches. They do 12 episodes per season and Ali was going to travel, so they were going to record 24 episodes in total, 2 seasons back to back. So all I did with this podcast booker, I said, look, just out of curiosity, I know Ali's recording. I don't want to put myself out there in the podcast unless Ali really wants me on there, but there's 24 people flying in from everywhere. Put me on the bench, like put me on the subs list. If one of those people drops out and you need that recording spot filled, I'll jump on a train and I'll come down and record. And so sure enough, I get a call on the Thursday. I'm on the train on the Tuesday. I had to cancel a load of stuff to make it happen. I got pooped on by a pigeon coming out of Paddington Station, but thankfully I had lots of spare shirts. We recorded the episode and I thought nothing of it. So that was in June last year. In August, it went live. That one podcast interview, because I nurtured that relationship using those 5 partnership steps, in the first 90 days it generated 1,500 leads for my business. Now, there's a really critical part of how I made that work, and that a lot of people guest on podcasts without having really anything anywhere intentional to send people. So I'm fortunate I had a fantastic marketing asset which I'm going to share with you all as well as a part of listening to this. My book, which is called Take Your Shot, which has been out for several years, I offered that as a gift at the end of the podcast, not thinking anything of it. So in the first 90 days, we had 1,500 people request a copy of that. Now, part of my strategy is give, give, give. So I made some signed copies available of it, and in the end, I ended up posting, I think, 600 signed copies of that book to all 4 corners of the globe, including Mongolia. Somebody from Mongolia actually ordered a copy of it. So it So you've got to have the partnership model in place, but at the end of that, you've also got to have something of real value to offer the other people within that person's audience as well, because otherwise it just won't work. I think if I just offered a free checklist or a free, I don't know, ebook or something like that, I don't think it would have gone down so well. But the fact I had physical copies of the book to sign and send out, and I covered postage, people found some real value in that. So make sure you've got that marketing asset at the end of it. That episode, just to kind of wrap things up, that episode's gone on to have 250,000 downloads. I think I'm approaching somewhere like 3,000 leads now just off that one interview. And for context, old-school marketing— and I know we're at time— old-school marketing, one by one by one by one, 3,000 leads was the equivalent of 4 years' work. I got 3,000 leads off a 2.5-hour interview just through leveraging the 5-step partnership framework I've shared with you. But you've got to be patient. It takes time to form these partnerships. You've got to pay a lot into that meter before you actually get the reward back. So there we go. So if you want to know a little bit more about me, and I've obviously mentioned about the signed copies of the book, we're going to share a link below, I believe, for that so you can grab a copy of it. Or if you're listening to this on the move, the website is fearless.biz/TYS for Take Your Shot. And I don't care where you live in the world, I'll pop a signed copy of the book in the post to you. My postmistress Pauline, she absolutely loves it when I bring down a stack of books to ship out because they make a little bit of money from that as well. So I hope you enjoyed this, and I look forward to sending your book out to you.