Gill Moakes (00:02.338)
Welcome, welcome to the Heads Together podcast. I'm your host, Jom Oakes, and I am thrilled to have you here with me again this week. So thrilled. Thank you for joining me. I feel like it's a little while actually since I sat down and recorded a solo episode. Lots of exciting things have been going on. I feel like I have so much to catch you up on. Where to start?
Well, first all, I had my holiday, went away, went to Lanzarote, had a lovely week in the sun, didn't do much, not much to report. I was just super lazy, read lots of books, actually listened to lots of books, really got into audiobooks on holiday, but just had a lovely relax in the sun, did an exciting buggy trip, you know, one of these off-road buggies up to the top of volcano. Very exciting.
Dave at one point, I thought he was going to say that we weren't going to do it because I think he got so scared by the safety briefing, but we powered through was really good. And now I'm back, back into work, exciting things going on around these parts. But then actually, I'm in preparation too, because I'm going on retreat. So my dear, dear friend, client and coach,
Deb Driscoll, host of the You Are the Magic podcast and also the founder of Big Life Magic is hosting a retreat in the wonderful island of Tobago that she gets to call home. Lucky devil. And I'm off on retreat with her. So I'm so excited for that. It's just about as I record this, it's less than a week away. So
really excited. It's exactly what I need right now. And yeah, I'm ready for it. I'm really ready for it. What else is going on around these parts? Just really amazing things, just clients. My clients just never cease to amaze me. With the work they're doing, the difference they're making the
Gill Moakes (02:28.243)
the their businesses are evolving. It's just beautiful. It's beautiful. I'm lucky. I keep saying it I'll never say it enough. have the best job in the world. So this week, I kind of want to share something with you that I've been thinking about a lot.
partly because of a project that I've been working on that if you're on my email list you will know about. If you are not on my email list why not? I'll put a little link in the show notes get on the email list and then this will all make sense but a project that I'm working on at the moment has sparked a few ideas for podcast episodes and this is one of them.
So this episode is all about the five things that I would focus on if I were a newly qualified coach right now. These are the five things that I would put my energy into. Okay, let's dive in.
All right, so the first thing if I were a newly qualified coach, the first thing the first place, I would be investing some of my energy and attention would be in giving some thought to the vision I have longer term for my business. I think sometimes it's really easy when we begin on a coaching journey. We
All we want to do is coach clients, right? We just want to get that first client. We want to really get our coaching experience up, become better and better coaches. But you know, from a business building perspective, assuming as I always assume that if you're a coach, you want to be a coach full time, that is your vocation. And if that's the case, I would really
Gill Moakes (04:36.426)
urge you and I would certainly urge new coaches today to really focus on the vision they have for their business. What do they want from their business in the long term? What are the goals they have in terms of their lifestyle, in terms of their revenue, in terms of their reputation?
So we have a resource that will help you with this. you go to dualmoats.com, you'll see in the top right hand corner of the website, there's a link to download my vision and goal setting bundle. And I'll pop a link to that resource in the show notes as well. So you'll be able to look there. But I think it's incredibly important to have your destination in mind when you are starting to build out your coaching practice.
because without that, it's like starting a journey without knowing what to program into your Sat Nav. Right? And it doesn't mean you have to have all the answers at the beginning because trust me, your business will evolve. It absolutely will evolve. So you don't need to be looking five, 10 years in the future, but really thinking about the next 12 months, what would you like to make happen in your coaching business over the next 12 months?
really really important and that's absolutely where I would start by just putting a little energy there.
The second thing is I would invest a ton of my energy and my
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sorry, you know, I would invest a ton of my energy into working out and getting very clear on how I stand out from the crowd. Like you don't need me to tell you this coaching industry is crowded. There are a lot of people who would love to be full time coaches. And if that's your ambition, if you want to be earning a living as a coach, if you want to be creating wealth as a coach,
which is what I help people do, then you really need to be working out how you're going to stand out. What's your edge? What makes you different? And so getting clear on your niche is so important because your niche isn't just saying, well, my niche is health coaching. My niche is leadership. My niche is
business coaching. That's not enough. Your niche has to be a way for you to communicate, to articulate very specifically what, sorry, very specifically who you serve.
the main problem your coaching solves.
And how you get that result with your client, how do you get that transformation with your client? What is the framework? What are the tools? What's the method you use in your coaching to bring about that transformation with your clients? Those three things, that's your niche. And you need to refine that so that you can articulate it effortlessly.
Gill Moakes (08:10.612)
And then it's not just about identifying and refining your niche, it's about committing to it. And this is the probably the biggest obstacle I see new coaches wrestling with is really committing to a niche, to a way for them to stand out, a way of differentiating themselves.
Gill Moakes (08:42.58)
So that is an area to really spend some time. And don't get me wrong, it's not like you're, you're not signing anything in blood. You're not committing to this. You can pivot your business as often as you like, but to get some momentum in terms of growing your business and building a successful coaching practice.
The ideal clients really need to be able to see very quickly that you are specifically the exact coach they need. Because trust me, they have a lot of choice out there, right? There's a lot of options for people looking for a coach. And if you can't articulate and demonstrate what sets you apart, your very specific niche in the coaching market.
you're going to struggle. So that's the second place I would put my energy. The third place and don't forget, these aren't in order of hierarchy. These are just five, five priorities, five places I would be focusing. The third one is relationships. I mean, this will never change. This has to be an area of focus for your business through the entire life of your business. But as a newly qualified coach, I would not be
spending all of my time on building out the newest, most fabulous tech options for scheduling my social media posts, right? As an example, I think building actual, meaningful relationships with potential clients, potential collaborators, potential introducers of clients, that is where I would be focusing my time. Because
out the algorithm will always limit your reach. And as a newly qualified coach, you're unlikely you've got a huge audience already. Even if you've had a previous business, and you have an existing audience, you now need to reposition yourself in the eyes of that audience as a coach. So, you know, this is really the time to go back to basics and start
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absolutely focusing on building deep, meaningful relationships with people, real people. So how could you network more? How can you have more conversations with people all across the industry? Like I say, it's not just about potential clients, it's clients, it's introducers, it's collaborators, it's other, it's podcast hosts, it's video show hosts, it's, it's building relationships with people.
that are going to help you build your business and grow your practice. So that's the third one relationships. The fourth one and again, this is evergreen that you need to focus on this is your marketing. You know, as well as that relationship marketing, you absolutely need a way to generate leads for your business, which is the purpose of marketing.
So the bit at the beginning, the how are you differentiating yourself? You know, what's your brand? What's your tone of voice? What's your, you know, what's look and feel of the business? All of that goes into how you set your apart, self apart. But once you have, your next job is to then market yourself and generate leads, potential coaching clients.
that you can get to know better, you can grow the know, like and trust factor with so that you have a pipeline of potential clients, where over time as they get to know, like and trust you, they will consider hiring you to be their coach. It doesn't happen overnight necessarily. But it is something that if I was starting right now as a new coach, I would definitely be looking at thinking, what is my
entry-level lead generation strategy going to be.
Gill Moakes (13:11.626)
And lead generation is no more complicated than asking someone to give you their email address so that you can continue to contact them. Now, a lot of people argue that followers on social media are leads. And I know that there are people out there who convert their Instagram followers into clients, for example. I think that works really well, for example, in a product business. Personally, in the coaching industry, I have never
had a single client DM me on Instagram and say, I'd like to work with you. Can I, you know, how can, how can I make that happen? For me, it's much more about using social media channels to share my thought leadership, peak the interest of potential clients, demonstrate that I'm an expert in the thing that I coach around, and then invite them to take the next step to raise their hand.
if they think they'd like to know more about working with me. And that could be through a freebie opt-in. like I mentioned at the beginning about the vision and goal setting bundle, that's a way for me to generate leads. So if you're listening to this podcast, which is my visibility platform, there's always three stages of marketing, visibility, lead generation and sales. So this podcast itself, this episode is visibility content for me.
Asking you to opt into something that's lead generation. If you opt in, means it's giving me the signal that you're interested in what I have to say. You quite like my style of delivery, perhaps. You would like to hear more from me. And then when you're on my email list, it's then my responsibility to deliver so much value to you that you stick around for a start, because let's face it, we all unsubscribe when...
something isn't really hitting the mark with us anymore. We're pretty good at doing that now, right? So my job, once you're on that email list, is then to nurture that relationship with you to a point where at some point you might be ready to hire me one-to-one as your coach, you might be ready to take a program with me, buy a course from me.
Gill Moakes (15:35.68)
So that's really where marketing sits. It's that lead generation piece that gives me the opportunity to nurture through to potentially being hired. So if I was a new coach, I would absolutely start really at the beginning and think, how can I start building a list? How do I start building an email list?
of people that I can get to know better, who may then at some point be ready to hire me as their coach. How can I do that? What can I offer them for free that's really valuable that in return they would give me their email address?
So that's the fourth thing. And then the last thing that I would really focus on as a newly qualified coach is the way I deliver my coaching service to my clients. How am I going to serve my clients in such a way that they can't help but refer me to their friends, to the people they know that might also need the kind of coaching that I offer?
How can I leave them feeling that way? How can I generate relationships with my clients that is so reciprocal that I help them as best I can and in return they want to help me build my business too as a coach? That's the mindset I want you to have. Every relationship with every client is an opportunity to get referral business.
And we all know that referral business is the best kind of marketing you can ever do is getting referrals, right? Every client relationship is an opportunity for that. So think about every tiny step of the experience that you give a client.
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always be on time for sessions, always be a little bit early. If your schedule allows it, you know, you don't have to hang up the call dead on the hour or dead on the half hour, wait until they've come to a natural conclusion. What are the tiny things is it do you send some kind of lovely handwritten letter when someone on boards with you?
How can you deliver this next level experience to someone coaching with you? Could you check in halfway through the week on how they're doing? If you're going to set them homework to do in between sessions, could you check in with that little added bit of accountability? Something that's a little bit of a surprise, perhaps, you know, not unexpected part of your service. So really delighting clients with your service. That is the
fifth thing that I would be focusing on.
really being the best coach you can be, let's face it. It's about how can I coach every single person? How can I make every single coaching conversation the best it can be?
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one of my sorry, Lena, not one of my my own trainer, the person that I trained under to become a accredited coach Marion Tilley, who is the founder of the Institute of coaching studies, who I partner with on a webinar. So go and check those out if you haven't seen them already.
I'll pop the link to that in the show notes as well. She once gave me a coaching or a question to ask as you're coming to the end of any coaching session, which was what could, is that, sorry, Lena, which was, there anything else that would make this session feel complete?
And I remember thinking at the time, my God, what a brilliant question. So while you're in this mindset of how can I serve every single client on every single call to the best of my ability? What a great coaching question to ask. What else would make this feel complete?
And if you can end every client interaction like that, my goodness. Beautiful.
So I hope that's been of interest and whether you are a newly qualified coach or whether you are an established coach, whether you simply use coaching as part of the service you deliver to your clients in whatever industry you're in. I want you to have a think about those five things and think to yourself if those are the things that you would really be focusing on right now to the probably the exclusion of everything else if she was just starting over.
Gill Moakes (20:51.766)
Where am I? Where have I got those things nailed in my business? And which areas maybe do I need to spend a little time looking over? You know, have you been working on your marketing apps really well? But actually, if you're completely honest, your service delivery has got a little bit scrappy. Or perhaps it's the other way around. You know, you deliver an absolutely mind blowing service, but your pipeline is a little bit thin and sparse. You don't have.
a marketing process, a strategy locked down that you're committed to implementing that's resulting in new leads being added to your email list every week. Whichever area it is, maybe that's where you need to focus a little bit of your working on your business time. Okay, I hope you have found this to be helpful. I will be here again, same time, same place next week.
course, I hope you'll join me again and remember all the links to everything, all the resources I've mentioned will be in the show notes. Thanks for being here. If you get time, could you go and leave a little review and rating for me on Apple podcasts? I will be forever in your debt if you were to do that. Thank you so much. Bye for now.
