The 7 Key Strategies to Fully Book Your Coaching Practice

John Ball (: 00:01

Angie

Angie (: 00:03

John

John Ball (: 00:05

do you remember a time when you were getting started and trying to fill up your business with clients and get yourself to fully booked and there were maybe some things that you focused on and probably shouldn't have and some things that you maybe didn't know to focus on but should have?

Angie (: 00:12

Hmm.

Oh, you mean like yesterday. Ha ha, no, I'm teasing. But yeah, right, of course. And I think that is ever changing, but absolutely I remember that, yeah.

John Ball (: 00:30

Oh, yes, this is an ongoing evolution that keeps going and going. So I thought it'd be a good thing for us to discuss today. What should we make sure that we are focusing on to get ourselves to stay stable, to fully booked and beyond? And what are the things that maybe we should be avoiding focusing on on that journey as well?

Angie (: 00:39

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mmm, sounds like a plan.

John Ball (: 00:52

Let's open the clinic.

So Angie, I don't know about you, but you know, I'm all the time learning about how to improve what I'm doing and get more focused on getting clients in the right way and get building up a business. And when I got started, and we've had this conversation many times, but I had no clue. I had no clue. So I didn't know what I really should or shouldn't focus on. I was doing paid ads in, I think I put an ad in

Angie (: 01:18

Yeah?

John Ball (: 01:32

some sort of local business magazine that got completely ignored. put an ad in the yellow pages that people know what that is. None of it, none of it paid off. None of it paid off. And these were just completely the wrong things to do. But all the stuff that because I was clueless, I was doing those I was kind of throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something would stick and it, it wasn't.

Angie (: 01:47

Yeah, yeah. ⁓

Yeah,

I listen and I think that, you know, this comes back to a couple of different things. You know, yes, back in the day, you and I had to do things a little differently. And as opportunities and marketing evolved and the interwebs, ha ha, but the internet and the use of that Facebook, LinkedIn, all of these things that have, you know, been thrust upon us and now

we live by it, there have been changes. And I think sometimes as coaches, we're slow, just a lot of people in business, not just coaches, but we're slow to recognizing something is here to stay and that we need to hop on, hop in and utilize it as a tool. But I think the most important thing is now because we have so, so many options in terms of communicating with our

Target audience. ⁓ wait, do we even know what that is or who that is? That for me would be a starting point if if I were talking to a new business a new coaching Business that said I don't know what to do. Where do I start? That would probably be my starting point with them

John Ball (: 03:17

⁓ 100%. And I could obviously say, even this week, I've been having realizations about who I generally prefer working with and, and, and who I who I really don't want to be working with. And this is after over 15 years in coaching that these realizations still come.

Angie (: 03:26

Yeah.

What you just said is so important though, who I don't want to be working with. I don't think that anybody comes into a business thinking that there's anybody. Like that's not top of mind. It's maybe a learned process because all of a sudden you go, ⁓ wait, know, let me say yes to everybody because I need to book, I need to earn, I need to make money. But we start maybe taking.

too much, throwing too much spaghetti against the wall because we're not even in the mindset yet of deciding who is my target. But that's a great point right out of the gate. Like, who do you know or do you not know yet? You should be looking for that. Who do you not, who is not your ideal client and why?

John Ball (: 04:27

some of that

follows from, yeah, some of that follows from our conversation last time, in our previous episode, which was which was on that sort of topic of that client, those people that maybe you have, not necessarily always problematic clients, but you don't maybe have the same level of rapport as you do with some of the clients who you love working with, the clients who energize you and make you think, ⁓ this, this is why I got into coaching. These are these the kinds of clients who I just love working with.

Angie (: 04:38

Yeah.

Yeah.

John Ball (: 04:56

Hopefully mostly we can have those, but that's not always the case. But I had realized that I maybe had gotten into a bit of a pattern of letting people through, slip through when they were like close enough or had most of those qualities. I like, well, actually, no, I don't really need to do that at all. I can be very clear about who I will work with and who I won't.

Angie (: 05:11

Mmm.

John Ball (: 05:21

so that I'm really working with the people who I know that I'm going to get the best results with and that I'm going to feel most energized with as well as best I can. Like that's, that's how I want to build my business. And it is having that sort of that VIP area of, of who you work with and who you don't like, who are you going to let in or who are you going to have the bounces turf out on the backside.

Angie (: 05:30

Mmm.

Yeah.

Angie (: 05:45

Yeah, but here's the thing, right? If we're talking about growing our book of business, if you will, growing our clientele, you're right, right? As we go through the process, we learn, learn like, you know, ⁓ maybe there are people who are like, I want your best program. And they can't even afford, you know, are, you know, a bubble gum piece of bubble gum.

That's not our client, right? We're not here to necessarily do the freebies forever, not that I'm saying no, but then there's this other point, like, as you're starting to gather these people to at least have, you know, something to, what's the word I'm looking for, not go through, but kind of look through and say, where does my ideal client actually sit? Who are they? I have to figure out first who they are. So that might mean,

that we're saying a lot more, you were giving a lot more yeses and nods yes, than we should as we're learning. But once we decide and we figure out, I don't know, this is the industry, right? Because how do you communicate with them? You have to know who they are so that you can communicate with them. And whether that is by providing webinars or

What's their language? What matters to them? You have to start identifying that because too much spaghetti against the wall ends up becoming too much spaghetti that's stuck to the wall. Right? You're laughing, but.

John Ball (: 07:14

And it's a waste of spaghetti,

thankfully, as well. Yeah. But yeah, I actually right. And you may well start off, think, probably as we would would off in which case of the your ideal client is the person who's willing and able to pay you money for for your services. And then you start to narrow it down from there. That's okay. You can absolutely start for that you have to sometimes figure these things out. But to also know that

Angie (: 07:20

⁓ I mean, that's the thing.

Right.

John Ball (: 07:43

you don't you don't want to and probably won't be able to work with people who are people who are combative, people who are contrarian on the calls, people who actually get on there, but then push back on every single thing that you do, then yes, all right, this isn't going to be the best coaching relation. This isn't going to be the best coaching relationship and in that sort of way. So you know, there's stuff you'll figure out along the way, but there might be some stuff, you know, in advance. Great, I'm not talking about a level of filtering.

Angie (: 07:56

Yeah, I don't have any of those. Sorry.

John Ball (: 08:12

that excludes so many people that your clients would, worldwide, amount of people who you'd work with, fit in a telephone box or something, you know.

Angie (: 08:16

Yeah.

think I said this in previous sessions here and there that your job as a business owner of any business is to attract customers, right? That's your job, right? Because without them, you do not have a business. So you do have to have some idea of how to find them and attract them and communicate with them so that you get the opportunity. Because again, you know,

it's where do we find them? But then as we're getting people, we're filtering them through the process, that's our moment to decide like, oh, this person is, you for whatever the reason is, not a good fit with myself, maybe we recommend them to other coaches. And I've done that, right? I've had people come to me, for example, that are like, I really wanted to like breath work. And I know some of that there are there are tools that I use. But that's not

Really who I am as a coach guess what that referral goes to somebody that I know a fellow coach that is very much in that space Because I still want to be of service right or be a resource But they're not for me and I'm not for them, right? I think we have to be fair to our client You know the potential client to and and not just say yes and go I'll just figure it out No, like if you have somebody who wants executive coaching and

You have no idea what that looks like. I highly recommend not seeking out, you know, C-suite, you know, potential candidates because you're not, you're doing a disservice. So you really have to decide like who you want, where do you belong? What's your intention? Who do you want to be when you grow up so that you don't waste a lot of time with spaghetti? I'm just, you know, throwing it back to that.

and fine tune that a bit, right?

John Ball (: 10:16

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I think there's a difference. In fact, there is quite a big difference in what you should be doing and focusing on whether you're if you're B2B or B2C. So if you're business to business, there are different things you should be focusing on than if you're business to client customer. And so you're not as a your coach, your business these days is more B2B. Mine is more B2C. So for you, what

Angie (: 10:29

Yeah.

John Ball (: 10:44

If you were guys, would say that, Angie, I'd like to kind of try and get similar results to you. What are some of the things that I should be focusing on and what should I not focus on? What would be your advice for someone in that position?

Angie (: 10:57

I don't know. think it's so simple and we've been saying it. So for example, if my sweet spot, my intentional space as a coach at this point is that I want to work with executives, right? Professionals. It doesn't have to be executive level or C-suite. It doesn't have to be. But if I want to work in the professional support ⁓ and growth space, I'm going to look for them in the professional and that space.

for example, like a LinkedIn, probably not looking for them on Facebook or TikTok, for example, not that they don't sit there, not that they don't have accounts and all of that, but more so because that's their private time. They're not interested in business when they sit there. I have friends that tell me all the time, you need to be on TikTok, you need to be on Instagram. And I'm like, no, I really don't. That's not where I wanna communicate with my...

my demographic of choice, demographic of choice. Did it start out that way? No, I was eating all the spaghetti. I said yes to everybody, which is why I think I'm able to come to this now and say, I don't want to. It's not that I should or shouldn't. I don't really want to. ⁓ So that's the thing. If you understand who your audience is or who your target audience is and you want to have conversations,

I don't know, you and I learned that we know this. Where do they sit? Where do they live? Where can I find them in groups?

John Ball (: 12:34

think what a lot of people struggle with, especially on the B2B side, is what what do you actually offer them? What what how do you make an offer that is likely to get accepted as a coach to a company that you are looking to go in and help? And what would be your your take on that? I mean, obviously, you you have had accepted offers in that way. So and without wanting to give away exactly what you are offering to them.

Angie (: 12:42

Yeah.

John Ball (: 13:04

What are the kinds of things that in your vision that people would be looking to expect from a coach who's doing that?

Angie (: 13:04

Yeah.

I think you have to do your research. I think that this is the part where we have to be a little bit patient and learn to understand that client, right? Whether it's you do polling or you do marketing research, right? There's companies that do that. Even like, for example, even the real estate, if you want to go after salespeople and you want to work with anybody that is, like, because you're a great sales trainer, coach, et cetera.

and you decide, I want to work on or in the space of ⁓ commission-based sales. Okay, real estate, insurance, like anything like that. And it's a huge market. And the thing is you have to look then at them and say what matters to them and then decide, you know, like figure out what's their biggest problem, do some research, go on to some blogs, listen to podcasts.

get an idea of what's happening in the industry in the moment. Because one thing I noticed is like, for example, right after COVID, one of the biggest coaching topics was ⁓ quiet quitting, right? And how are you as a corporation, how are you handling this? So guess what? I shifted. I ⁓ was nimble, I was agile, and I started to create.

cherry pick, I already have content fallen out of my ears, but decided, let me put something together and speak their language. And guess what? That accelerated my business more than I could have thought, but I had to understand them. So funny, I know I'm talking a lot, but even back in the day, because my background was in sales training and all of that management training,

and leadership. And the interesting thing is that ⁓ I want a friend who was a realtor at the time. And she was like, you would be a great like real estate trainer. And I was like, okay. So I started pitching companies, people, individuals. And you know what the bottom line was, none of them wanted to really work with me, because they didn't think I understood their industry enough. So I went and got a real estate license because at the time,

There were like 90,000 agents in the state of New Jersey, which is where this all started. And I thought in my head, that's 90,000 opportunities. I know how to get them. So guess what? I did. Went and got a license, actually worked my way up and became an instructor. like, again, I needed to understand what their needs were and also too, what their resistance might be so that I could be ahead of the curve. Okay, enough of me, sorry.

I'm

John Ball (: 16:05

No, no, I got into I got into some corporate coaching through realizing once your company I'd worked with, ⁓ worked for for a number of years, was doing massive amounts of layoffs. And they one of the challenges that they were having that I was aware of was that some of the managers who were responsible for dealing with the layoffs were going long term sick because of stress. And so

Angie (: 16:19

Mmm.

Yeah, yeah.

John Ball (: 16:33

that was the, that was the consultation offer I made to the company or like, see this as a problem for you right now. I could come in and coach these people and help them through it so that they're managing the stress better, they can deal with handle these situations better. And there are even people who who have gone in to these places to specifically coach the people who are being made, I think it's called getting laid off there, right. But in the UK, it would be being made redundant from from the job you're in.

Angie (: 16:42

Mmm.

John Ball (: 17:03

that they hire coaches now to help people through that period as well to move into transition into the next stage. I think they're actually called transition coaches. You know, these are specific problems. I, okay, some people might be hearing that thinking, yeah, I could do that. Well, maybe you could. But maybe, maybe that fits with what you offer and what you do. But maybe it doesn't. But take a look at still the research still take a look at these things and see, where am I best equipped?

Angie (: 17:11

Yeah.

Right.

John Ball (: 17:31

to be able to help make a difference with the problems and challenges that these businesses have that we're to feel rewarded and benefited from as well. Because the B2C thing is a little different when you're going to ⁓ your business is looking for customers, but individual clients, it's a little different. I mean, it's all still people to people. It's all still human to human, but it is a bit of a different approach. And I am of the opinion now.

Angie (: 17:32

Yeah.

Absolutely, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

John Ball (: 18:01

in 2026 that one of the strategies that we probably do need to focus on highly is becoming more known and being

Angie (: 18:03

Tell me.

I knew you were gonna say that. was like,

is he gonna say what I think? Because I go ahead, I was just curious and I agree, but go ahead. Yeah.

John Ball (: 18:19

⁓ Because

this is the attractive thing. I we've talked about this, that you need to you need to attract the clients to you. And one of the best ways to do that is to become known for what you do. And there are different pillars to being able to do that. But having the book, I wouldn't have always said that was a thing. But now I would having the book having the podcast guesting appearances or having their YouTube channel or even your own podcast or lots of

Angie (: 18:31

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

John Ball (: 18:47

speaking opportunities as well, paid or otherwise, that are getting you the visibility in the marketplace to have you become the person who people actually want to find and work with because they're used to your voice. They know what you do. They know what you're about.

Angie (: 18:53

There you go. Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah,

yeah. I listen and I think that is that has I think the way the world is changing in general like business and otherwise. It's a no brainer. I think when you and I back in the day, we didn't think let's go find people in groups, right? We weren't we were more like, let me go find somebody that needs me. And then we grew and we, you know, we realized, hey, speak in front of many, get maybe you know, more of the individuals or

get an individual and ask for the many right who do they know ask for the referral but to your point and i think this is so important that it's not that we're saying like you have to now become this influencer and i'm you know i'm kind of air quoting this but people you need to put yourself out there you're not emails actually done you know cold emails i don't care who you are there's still companies that'll say we get so many people

Yeah, you must be doing it like 100,000 emails a week and then you're getting 10 or something and that's working for you. But generally that is just not on the top five things that I do anymore. It isn't working. People don't want it. So to your point, you know, you have to be seen. You have to make yourself available. They are otherwise not going to know you exist.

Maybe in your little sphere of influence, the people you already know and you have a couple of successes where somebody refers you to somebody. And by the way, that's a goal. Your goal, like my goal as an entrepreneur was to get my business to the point where at least 75 % of my incoming business was based on referrals. Focus on that. Ask for the business. Many people don't.

bother and I'm like, well, wait a minute. All it takes is one to set off, right? A cascading effect. So that's an untapped, I think, space, right? And you're not necessarily going, hey, by the way, John, like, who do you know? Yeah, you could ask that, but go to them, to their deal, go to their socials and see who they know and what they do. And if you find people that are in alignment with what you do,

ask for the introduction or make the connection. Go to the warmest leads because that in and of itself can create its own little, you know, I want to call it a happy avalanche, you know.

John Ball (: 21:38

Yeah, no, I'm aware that when when when I'm talking to coaches, because I know that this would come up for me as well. That when I talk, we talk when we talk about attracting clients to you, it doesn't mean that doesn't mean just sit and wait for the phone to ring or sit and wait for the emails to come flooding in. It does mean taking taking these actions, and following up and doing all the things. ⁓ But but I would say it is about

Angie (: 21:50

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

John Ball (: 22:04

often will say this, probably hear from me all the time now, but it's about being that bit more strategic with what you do, rather than spreading yourself thin and trying to be ubiquitous and everywhere. Focus in on particular channels, focus in on what your strengths are. Now, are you good at video? Are you good at being interviewed? Are you good on stage? Are you good at writing? Are you good at short form posts or long form articles? And focus on what your strengths are and the channels that

Angie (: 22:20

Yeah.

John Ball (: 22:32

actually start to get you some results, rather than this sort of hope and spray kind of attitude of let's, let's spray a little what I've got everywhere all around, and hope that something comes from that. We are we are in a time where you have to be that bit much more focused and strategic about what you're doing, if you want to see the results. But because we still see those people who are like five, 10 steps ahead of us, whatever.

Angie (: 22:41

Yeah.

John Ball (: 23:01

doing all the things, we think, ⁓ I should be doing all the things as well. That's what they're doing. Do not do not copy their strategies. In that sense, it's not going to work for you.

Angie (: 23:10

No.

Because you don't even know, like I have to say this, this is something that I think points to this a little like specifically, you know, for example, you know, I see all over, right, all over LinkedIn and other places like, oh, come to this free webinar, free, free, free. And everybody says, oh, give something, get people, I'm going to tell you, I'm no longer doing any of that for free. And it's not because I'm greedy, but people are excited. They're like, yes, I'm coming.

register here blah blah and that's great and one person out of forty show up because they have no skin in the game it's easy to say ⁓ forget it i don't want to do that you know i'm too tired today or another meeting so i do newly do charge a nominal fee a small fee because it will attach them to the necessity of that so to your point it kind of eliminates the people who really aren't serious about

showing up anyway. So I'm not saying like not to do that. The people that you see doing it, if you have a large following and you're inviting everybody that's already somebody you're connected to, you might by default get a decent turnout. But if you really want to utilize that and say, Hey, I would love to really talk about this topic. Come to my free webinar or complimentary webinar or complimentary symposium, call it whatever you want.

loud nose on it for all I care. But the bottom line is that when things are for free, we do not care for them in the same way that we do the things that we've worked for our money, our time or resources. So there needs to be an attachment there. What's that? Yeah.

John Ball (: 24:53

true now. Yeah, true now more than ever. It's true now more

than ever. Yeah, so those strategies had worked for a time before when they were still novel and when there was still not everyone else out there was doing them. But now they're pretty ineffective. Not saying you can't get any results with that, you're just going to get very limited results. I hear a lot in the industry now about the the age of free webinars is dead, and more people are doing paid.

Angie (: 25:04

Yeah.

Yeah? No, right.

John Ball (: 25:22

It adds it adds that value and it adds in that commitment level to what you do. And if you're worried about that, like, well, you want to bring them into those next stages, you're only going to bring in the people who are really interested in who are already leveraged at that sort of point. And if you want, you can discount the price of that of that webinar, or event if you want to call it for people are calling them more events now anyway, discount the price of that event off of whatever they can upgrade into from there. Great. You know,

Angie (: 25:23

Yeah.

Yes, yes.

Right. Yeah.

Yes.

You know what I do, this is so funny.

I say to them, you can get enough, bring another person, right? I will, you know, I don't use the word discount, but then I'm just saying, and then that's a tactic that I've used and it works like bring up here, bring a fan, make a recommendation, make sure they say your name because in the registration who referred you will be sitting there. So obviously I don't do it. My admin does it, but you know.

John Ball (: 25:58

Thank you.

Angie (: 26:15

then we keep track and it's a great incentive for people to talk about you, know, and create, again, I love the whole idea of the cascading effect and it can happen with just one person, the right person, but yeah, no more, no more free webinars. Thank you very much.

John Ball (: 26:25

Yeah.

I think we could easily have a whole episode or even maybe more than one about about this topic about the free events and the webinars and using that as a funnel as a strategy for your business. Because I think that would be useful. And it's something that we both do. so yeah, I think that'd be great. But let's draw it to a close here. I think we've done a nice cover of sort of what you should be thinking of what you should be doing. But it all comes down to doing the work not being passive about this.

Angie (: 26:38

Yeah.

Yeah.

John Ball (: 27:00

you still have to treat it all like a business and put the put the time and energy and effort into it. It will pay off so long as you don't waste your time doing the stuff that doesn't really get you results. Let's wrap up the coaching clinic there. Yeah, it's

Angie (: 27:05

Yeah.

Yeah, I guess I want to use the word strategic. want to say that. Sorry, I'm cutting you off. be strategic.

Because no, to your point, people can get, we don't get lazy. We do get complacent because we feel like, well, I'm just going to put this post out there and it's going to meet, it's going to find all these people. And I don't have to do much with that. And that's really not true. With the competition, you definitely need to make sure that you're being super intentional about where you're putting, what you're putting where.

without a doubt. Okay, I'm done. Sorry.

John Ball (: 27:42

Yeah. Yeah, you

do not you are not going to have a fairy godmother turning up and waving a magic wand and making it all work for you. You have to put in the work yourself. So that's a good place for us to shut the doors for the coaching clinic for this week and we'll come back again next time.

Angie (: 27:58

We shall.