Finding customers

[kevin@sits]

How do I find customers who are looking for what I have to offer?
I want to offer specialized coaching for employees who want to transition into entrepreneurs.
How do I find them on FB or anywhere else?

[Fulcrum]

Don't take this the wrong way but wouldn't it make sense to know how to do this before offering a coaching service?

[vangogh]

Have you given any thought to who are your potential customers? It's unlikely you can appeal to everyone who currently works for someone else and wants to work for themselves so who specifically do you see as a customer? You want to offer specialized coaching. What's special about it? That should tell you who your customer is. Then figure out where that person spends time and find a way to spend some of your time in the same place.

I'll also echo what Brad said. Isn't this something you should already know? It's exactly the kind of question someone who's just getting started in business is going to ask you about for guidance. If you don't know how to find customers what would someone gain by hiring you to coach them?

[BizAdvisor]

Consulting was a thing way before social media... And it still consists of doing things the old fashion way; meeting new people, shaking hands, talking shop, and leaving their card.

Where will you find clients? At social functions, birthday parties, weddings, bars... Places where groups of people hang out and chit chat... Heck, even long lines can provide an opportunity to engage! "So what do you do?" "Oh yeah, have you ever thought about going off on your own and doing that independently?" "Oh, you have a buddy that's thinking about opening up his own..?" Here, let me give you my card!

Of course, those are simply examples, but it's pretty much how it works.

[ElevateMedia]

I currently have a client who does coaching for Business not individuals and we're markets on Linkedin. What she does is offer a free workshop to bring her customers. Since your going after individuals I would recommend Facebook as your best option. Offer them something like a free coaching session for an hour to get them in the door.

Of course build a website if you don't already have one and start Search Engine Optimization to get to the top of Google. To start out you could easily rank for some low-medium competition keywords.

<removed>

Cheers

[Harold Mansfield]

I have a few thoughts:

You need to do market research to find out how viable your service is, who would be your target customer, and once you figure that out you can come up with a plan on how to get them. There is no all encompassing marketing plan that we can direct you how to do or a place to send you were people are just waiting to give you their credit card numbers. You have to market, promote and advertise to get business.

If in your research you find that there isn't really a market for what you want to offer, abandon ship. Every good idea is not a viable business. Yes, it is possible to create your own market ( give talks, seminars, write books, get on podcasts, TV, radio etc) , but that is hard work, time consuming and expensive which leads into my next point..

Having worked with 2 "coaches" in the last 5 years, it seems to be a dead industry. There's so much free info out there now, online courses, blogs, books, webinars, SBA and forums like this for people to go to and learn on their own that it would take a very special kind of person, with disposable income to hire someone to walk them through it.

Which brings up who would be your ideal customer.

Employees are generally low to middle wage and likely bootstrapping. So whatever you're charging can be better put to good use building a website, prototype, getting licenses and all of the other things they will need that they really can't afford anyway. Additionally, successful coaches and consultants make a name for themselves in other industries first and have a verifiable resume of success with which they can use to market and promote themselves.

If you think you can target high salaried employees, they're likely to be college educated, already have connections and resources, and wouldn't need you to walk them through it.

So just off the top of my head your choices of customers seem to be people who can't afford you, or people who don't need you. Add to that much of what you'd be charging for, people are now giving away to build lists, memberships, sell other products and build a loyal following.

Now, if you were some kind of specialist in a certain industry or had a specific talent that start ups need then you could market and sell those specific services. But IMO the market for a business coach is pretty dead these days. Successful people in that area are specializing and bringing something to the table.

[KristineS]

Harold has some very good points that you definitely should consider.

That said, to address the original question - don't neglect social media when looking for customers. You will need to know who your target customer is and follow those types of people. Also look for groups that may be based around starting a business. Although people say blogs are dead, they're not, so this might also be a fertile avenue. Start a blog and post good content that will help people, don't make it a constant advertisement for your business.

[Josh0077]

May be set up a proper page on fb and run a fb paid campaign. Now it is up to you that how much you want to spend. Your target market can be I think between 25-45 usually the younger ones who want to have their own business and the older ones who want to earn extra or may be have a full time business of their own. Also I will recommend trying to find out most unsatisfied jobs and target people falling in that category on fb. This should definitely help you out a lot.