Bonus Ep - 3 LinkedIn Strategies to get your next 2 Corporate Coaching Clients
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[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the business of executive coaching podcast. Now, today's episode is a little bit different. And it's a bit of a bonus episode where I am putting up a copy of the masterclass that I ran this week. The masterclass is part of the our launch of the corporate to coach accelerator.
And it was on the subject of three LinkedIn strategies to get your next three corporate clients. So I talk a bit about LinkedIn, but, but more than that, I talk about what should your, your sales approach look like across the whole of a whole of an executive coaching business, including looking at sales as a funnel.
So I talk about that and I talk about how LinkedIn can help you to fill the top of your funnel and also to help you nurture the leads that you have within your funnel. So if you think that is interesting, I think you're going to get some value out of this session. Now, if obviously this is intended to be a video based [00:01:00] class or a video that you watch the recording of there are slides that do illustrate what I'm talking about.
And in one part, I actually go into LinkedIn live and show you how to, to do something. If you would like to watch the recording please just send me a message so you can email me. You can contact me on LinkedIn or Facebook or Instagram, wherever you are. And just let me know, and I will arrange to get you a copy of the recording doors to the corporate to coach accelerator are open for just a few more days.
So in the show notes, you'll see a link to book a call with me and the link, if you would like to sign up. A few of, of the new joiners, or most of them actually are also podcast listeners, so you will be in excellent company if you choose to join, particularly for the 2025 kickoff. So without further delay, here is the episode a recording of the masterclass three LinkedIn strategies to get your next three corporate clients.
So, so to dive right in, you're all [00:02:00] here because you want to know how LinkedIn can be a source of growth in your coaching business, particularly your executive coaching business.
And today I'm going to share just a few. So three of the strategies that my corporate to coach accelerator members learn as part of their business development framework. So these are all really actionable tools, things that you can implement straight away. And my goal is not to have too much filler. So this is intended to give you a taste of what it is really like inside the accelerator.
And my motto is only the practical content you need and no filler. Sometimes I get in trouble because that's not necessarily the best sales approach, but it is very authentically me. So that is what we are doing. I will tell you though, that the doors to the Cooperative Coach Accelerator are open this week.
And I'm going to share more information with you about the Accelerator and how you can join the wonderful Jillian from my team is going to post links in the chat periodically. And those links are going to give you two things, one where you can read more about the [00:03:00] accelerator and also so that you can book a call directly with me this week, while doors are open.
And if you do book a call during the webinar today, you will lock in access to all of the early bird bonuses that are still available, regardless of when we managed to have a call, although I've got lots of time available. So it's definitely worth doing that and looking in a call. If you are interested and want to explore, if it would be a good fit for your business.
So I think Jill will pop those links in. And she'll do that periodically. I look amazing. Thank you, Jillian. You're the best. Okay. So I'm making some assumptions. If you have come to this session that there are a few things that are true for you. So this class is for you. If you are a well trained coach, you're a great coach.
And I include people who are doing their, their high level coach training. It's for you. If you have had a professional career before you pivoted to coaching if you are running a coaching business already, or if you intend to do so within, you know, the first few months of 2025 you work with [00:04:00] corporate clients and you want more of those, or you would like to work with corporate clients more, and that may be that you're making a pivot from working with individuals or from purely doing associate coaching or from perhaps more of a therapeutic focus and.
It's for you. If you feel like there are goals that you have around profit, impact your lifestyle, and you feel like you don't have all the tools or support you need to get there. So just to give me a sense, could you share in the chat, how long have you been in business as a coach or do you have a plan of when you will be starting your coaching business or are you running a different type of business?
So I'd just like to get a sense of, of who we have in the room. So just. Oh, Kareen, Kareen, Kareen 18 years. Brilliant. Me too. Oh, either. You're very sweet. 15 years. Okay. We've got some really experienced coaches here. Wow. Thank you, Judy. Thank you, Jill. Eight years. Yeah. Also Emma. One [00:05:00] year. Fantastic. I love your, your business.
I am, I am empowering humans. That's awesome. Okay. So we've got a bit of a combination, you know, a variation of levels lots of different people, Lara in house coach. I had five years doing that too. Lara. I really loved it. Got a lot out of it. Probably the biggest learning experience of my life. And now restarting on your own.
It's a really exciting, awesome journey, Andrew, 20 plus years, brilliant. Look, I feel like I should get you guys to run the coaching masterclass for us while we're here. Okay. Excellent. So we have got a lot of experience in the room, which, which gives me a Paul 35 years. Yes. Awesome. Awesome. Amazing. So I'm going to make some assumptions then that we're looking at.
Maybe a shift in marketing approach and the leveraging LinkedIn is, is something that is important for the next phase of marketing and business development. So I just want to tell you a little bit who are about who I am very quickly as well. So my name is Ellie scarf. As you [00:06:00] know, I am an executive coach and coaching business owner.
So I've been coaching for over 18 years. Started in the early, early two thousands. And I've been selling coaching services to corporations and, you know, global brands, big tech, fin services beyond for most of that time. I've also been an associate coach where I've coached under other people's banners alongside my practice and I've coached in house as I mentioned.
So I feel like I've kind of, I've kind of done it all. I've got a really great team. A really solid grounding in lots of the different business models of executive coaching. My passion and my business now is coaching and mentoring executive coaches about the business foundations that underpin profitable executive coaching businesses.
And a lot of that is about how do we grow our client base. I also host the executive, the business of executive coaching podcast, where I share pretty practical business advice that is tailored for executive coaches. And I also get the chance periodically to [00:07:00] interview brilliant coaches or, or experts to explore their corporate to coach stories.
Including how they sell, how they make money, how they manage all the bouncing balls of being a coach in business. And I'm, I'm assuming some of you attending today may have listened to the podcast. So if you are a podcast listener, just give me, give me a yes in the chat. Cause it is it's one of the greatest joys that I have discovered over the last year.
And it's yeah, so much fun. So in terms of a few housekeeping matters for today, we're going to be here for an hour and I'm going to stay on. For as long as we need as long as there are questions to be answered. Oh, Paul is also a podcaster. Brilliant. Oh, 145 weeks, Paul. I'm so impressed. Oh, brilliant.
Thank you. Great. Okay. So yes. And if you have questions as we go along please pop your questions into the chat or the Q and a box. Probably the chat is easiest. I'm going to answer them as we go along. And if I miss any, I'll come back and answer them at the end. And we will be [00:08:00] sending you a recording and we will be sending you the slides.
So if you are interested in rewatching it, you will have access to that for a limited time period. And as I mentioned at the end of the class, I'm going to share all the details and a special offer. If you choose to join the accelerator. So. I talked to a lot of coaches. I talked to a lot of executive and leadership coaches specifically, and those who want to do more in that space.
And there are a lot of themes that emerge about what they want for themselves and for their business. And really I'm, I'm assuming that a lot of you are in these categories as well. And the biggest one. Is that you want more clients than you currently have. This is really common. And there are not many people who, who don't, although those who have more experience may, may want more of a shift in, in the base of the clients that they have, a lot of coaches want more consistency in their revenue.
So they want a buffer for the rollercoaster of business revenue that they have. And I, you know, firstly, the [00:09:00] rollercoaster is entirely normal, but more consistent revenue can help with that, you know, managing the stress of being in business. You want to replace your corporate salary or exceed it, but not at the cost of working more.
You want to feel inspired and excited to get to go to work every day. You might want the flexibility in your days and weeks that your corporate job probably couldn't or didn't provide. And very importantly, you want to be out there making a difference and doing work that matters. So I'm wondering if any of these resonate for you, just to give us some context to why we want to do this work at all.
Why are we doing this work on LinkedIn to, to help it to grow? So if you could pop in the chat, let me know which ones are really true. Yeah. Laura says all resonate for me. They also, Laura, all of those are important to me. Any other thoughts? Yeah, Mario. Yeah, all of them. All of them. Absolutely. Fantastic.
So look, it's not the only thing that you need to think [00:10:00] about, but in truth, many of those goals and those objectives are met when you have a really good strategy for getting new clients consistently. And you know, and, and yeah, Judy said, impact and meaningful work is really important. And, and that's right.
But we can't do that if we can't bring people in the door consistently. And so, you know, my client share. A few patterns of where they, they are at when it comes to getting clients, they might be okay at marketing when things are quiet, right? So they can spend the time, but as soon as they get busy, they forget all about it.
And they fall into this boom and bust cycle of marketing. And I would say that's really normal, but it's also not entirely helpful. They may never have been taught what an integrated approach to business development. So your sales and your marketing and, and all of those other things looks like. So it can feel like you're doing so much but not the right things, right?
So you don't know if you're doing the right thing at the right time. They can also feel really uncomfortable about this idea [00:11:00] of selling their services, which can feel like selling themselves, even though I try and separate those two. And they can feel uncomfortable about building visibility. And so then they tend to fall into these avoidance or procrastination traps.
And it could also be that perfectionism is getting in the way also of doing what they, they know that they need to do. So it makes sense. That if they're having all of these experiences and these feelings, that their outcomes are going to be variable or really not what they hoped. So I'm imagining that some of those ring a bell.
Any, anyone want to, want to give me some confirmation in the chat or an emoji or, or yes, if any of those things sound familiar. So the, the perfectionism, the avoidance of procrastination because of fear of visibility the perhaps not knowing how you should be spending your time. And that, that sort of that, that boom or bust like market when there's time, when there's time and, and avoid it when there's not.
Yeah. And Emma's like, yes, I, I, I feel you are [00:12:00] recovering perfectionist Judy. I, I hear you. Although I feel like I've recovered quite well from that. Actually. I've I'm embracing the, the 75 percent rule, which is I do everything. And if it's 75%, I get it out the door because I need to be focused on action.
Brilliant. Yeah. Lots of people. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So before I share any tools, I want to share a foundational concept that we use inside the accelerator, which is that all of our business development activities, we need to think of them as part of our funnel. Emma also says she's a burnout recovered exec here.
Perfect. Yeah. Okay. So perfectionism. Sitting high on the, on the the agenda, I bet. Okay. So all of our BD activities are part of a funnel and it's quite simple. So if we think about sales in our business as a funnel, what it means is that anyone who comes into our orbit at all is in some way, part of a broad sales funnel.
And at the top of our funnel are our leads. And our leads are the people who have entered our orbit, who you know, who we have permission to communicate with in some [00:13:00] way, and they might be old leads. Right. And look, honestly, we don't really spend a lot of time in the accelerator on our cold leads for many reasons, mostly that it's not super effective, or they might be warm leads or they might even be hot leads.
Right. Which is when we start to talk about prospects, which is slightly different. So through your intentional lead nurturing activities, a proportion of those people who are sitting at the top of your funnel are going to become warmer leads to the point that they then become prospects. And of those prospects, a proportion will then you know, have a meeting with you, have a conversation with you.
A subset of those people will have like a real opportunity out there. You know, you'll then pitch for some of that work and a small subset of that. Of those will become clients, right? So it's a progressive filtering process. And look, many of those that you've engaged with that don't immediately convert will remain in your funnel and convert when there is a real opportunity that comes up.
So your investment of time in nurturing the leads through your funnel can pay [00:14:00] off now, or it might pay off in six months or 12 months. I've had corporate engagements go from you know, a pitch where I submitted a proposal for coaching for three execs say and it just went silent. They ghosted me.
I followed up nothing. 18 months later, I came back and we ended up running a leadership program for the entire leadership team, including one on one coaching. And I had, you know, sort of six or seven coaches in that system. So. No time is wasted, is what I would say, and think of it as a funnel, but also a funnel that once someone's out of the funnel, it doesn't mean they're gone for good.
They continue to be part of the process. And there are a few reasons why we think about our business development approach as a funnel. And one is that it makes it very clear to us that there is a numbers game here, right? It is not just just numbers, right? So it's not, not the case that you just put as many random people in the top of your funnel and you will end up with clients.
You also need good strategy. And that means that your numbers [00:15:00] are more effective. There's a greater percentage of conversion. But you do need numbers and you need, you need volume and you need consistent volume in at the top in order to work towards clients coming out the bottom. So it's not enough to just do this once we need ongoing disciplines.
And we also need strategies to continually move people through the funnel. And that is the nurture strategy, right? To make them more likely to become clients. And then what I haven't included, and this is not in scope for today is we also need strategies for conversion, right? Which is how do we go from these warm leads in sales to, to become clients.
And we won't talk about that too much. Cause I want to focus on where, how LinkedIn plays a role in this funnel. So if we stay focused on those earlier stages of the funnel, there are a few ways that LinkedIn plays a part. So LinkedIn is a top of funnel strategy, meaning it's a way that we get more leads in the door.
And LinkedIn can also be used as part of a nurture strategy to move people through the funnel more [00:16:00] effectively. But don't forget, LinkedIn is just one of the tools that you have in your toolkit. And for sure is one of the more important ones I'd say, but you can't forget that it isn't the, the end all and be all of, of your marketing and your business development.
And we need to be sure that it's not because just like with all social media channels, we don't own that that tool or that, that presence. So, you know, LinkedIn can't be your only strategy because what if the platform goes down? What if we get blocked? You know, tech stuff happens all the time. So make sure that it's one piece of your, your strategy, not the whole piece.
We do talk a lot in accelerate about all, you know, that your, I guess your ecosystem of strategies as well, if you want to explore that further. Okay. So to summarize our logic before we get into the two tips, more leads in at top of funnel. Better nurturing of the leads that we have so that we can predictably land more clients at the end of our funnel.
So how do we use LinkedIn to do that? [00:17:00] Before we dive in, I would like to know if you could give me a score out of 10, how comfortable are you using LinkedIn for your business development? Just give me a, give me a sense of where you're at. Yeah, but a five, a nine, great Kirsten, a three, yeah, some, some room.
Yeah. Okay. And I, okay. No, and we've got some people who are pretty, pretty comfortable. So, so that is brilliant and, and we've got a breadth and what I like is, you know, it's like, it's, we're using the coaching tool. We've got scaling, there's room for all of us to, to, you know, improve and grow. And so let's dive into a few tools.
There are a number of strategies I think need to be in every coach's toolkit when it comes to business development using LinkedIn. And I'm going to share three of them with you today. Importantly, I'm not talking about content today. Content is a really important nurture strategy, but today I want to share some ideas that you may not have already heard, or you might not already have implemented.[00:18:00]
So we're going to look at three things. We're And why you should be doing that. We're going to look at a way to analyze the network that you have and how that can help. And we're going to look at warm outreach strategies. And this last one is a huge topic and it's a big part of what we do in the accelerator.
So I'm just going to share a few strategies so that I don't go on for three or four hours. But if you know that this is a priority for you, and I think it should be then I would suggest that you consider joining us in the accelerator where this is a very much discussed topic. So we've got a bunch of curriculum on it and masterclasses on outreach strategy.
And we taught, and probably more importantly, we talk about it in our coaching calls in relation to individual needs of, of the people, because the way you run your outreach strategy is going to be different from another coach because of your professional background, because of the makeup of your network and so on.
Okay. So I want to start with the growth [00:19:00] strategy. And that is that it's really important to use LinkedIn as a way of filling the top of your funnel with new connections and new members in your network. And I want to start here because I think it is often the business development step that is, is most commonly missed that we, we, Limit ourselves by thinking that we only have this pool of a network and that that pool can never change.
So what is the strategy? The strategy is that you should be consistently adding connections, new connections to your LinkedIn network. And specifically that means you should be sending out connection requests with personalized notes to the people in your second degree network who are your ideal clients, and you should be doing it regularly.
There are a lot of reasons why this is important including that you're firstly, we need to add new people because probably right now your network is full of coaches and that [00:20:00] is great because coaches are awesome, right? So it's, it's, it's a good thing to have in terms of the energy in your feed and the people that you're surrounded with, but it is a bit problematic for sales.
And it's problematic because it is very common for your feed and your content to become an echo chamber of coaching content. And again, that's fine because it, you know, it can be inspiring. You can learn new things, but it probably means that you're not getting exposed to your ideal clients. And it probably means that they are not seeing you either because the algorithm is assessing.
That you engage most with coaches. So that is who should see your content. So I would say keep networking with coaches, but don't let it swamp your client, your industry, or your functional networks. And they're the ones that we want to be growing as, as we use this strategy. It's also important that you continue to grow your network with your ideal [00:21:00] clients, because we need to be consistently increasing the pool of leads that we're talking to, right?
Really simple. This is our top of funnel. There just needs to always be people coming into our top of funnel. And LinkedIn is a really good way to do that. If we add people consistently and there are also a lot of flow on positives from doing this because really it can, it can have an exponential effect because not only are.
They're more relevant people in our network. They are also more potential referral sources to relevant networks. There are more outreach opportunities. People who are relevant are going to see your content at second degree as well. Also important because you will get exposed to the content of those folks, which means that you're learning more about what is important to them.
What is topical in their world, what challenges they're experiencing. Thank you for listening. And this helps you to write better and more valuable content for those people. It means that you're more [00:22:00] educated when you have your sales conversations and there's just really a positive, a positive cycle that emerges from that.
So you can see that it's important and that it can have a really positive impact. So how should you do it? In fact, the mechanics of this are pretty simple. It's execution that, that is trickier. So firstly, you need to figure out what ideal clients you want to be targeting, right? And we do a lot about this in, in the accelerator, but you need to think about, is it, is it a, an industry?
Is it a profession? Is it a role that you want to target? So maybe you have experience as a CFO. So for you, industry is less relevant, but you want to work with finance teams and CFOs across organizations, or is there a geography that you want to focus on? Once you've identified those ideal clients, then you need to find them.
And this includes using the search function for one. And this is one of those. Areas where it is worth [00:23:00] having the conversation about whether you should invest in an upgraded version of LinkedIn. So whether LinkedIn premium or LinkedIn sales navigator is worth it. Certainly sales navigator has much more advanced filtering search and list saving capability.
It makes this piece of the puzzle a lot easier. But it is expensive, right? And there is still a lot you can do with regular LinkedIn or premium LinkedIn. So although the premium offer has got a bit of a tendency to change what is included it does allow you to send More connection requests with personalized notes, which is really important.
And it has got more filterable criteria in search to help you find people. So, you know, that, that could be a sort of a middle ground option, but you can just use regular as well. You just have to be a bit more creative about how you find people, which might be looking at second degree networks of, of people that you know, are your ideal [00:24:00] clients.
You can also use groups and find places where your ideal clients are engaged, or you can use hashtags or common interests. Although I have, I have heard something that they're, that hashtags are being phased out, so that'll be interesting to see. You could also u you know, look for followers of certain organizations, for example.
And then finally, and probably most importantly, you need to build a rhythm around reaching out to them. So I suggest setting yourself daily or weekly targets for doing this. Now you do need to be aware. That there are limits on how many you can, how many new connections you can add. And the last time I checked, it was around 400 a month.
But you need to do your research because this can change. And what I suggest is starting with, say, five a day and, and growing from there you may notice. So there, there are a few things that I want to, you know, just flag as just don't be, be aware and, and manage the potential challenge. You may notice.
That not everyone wants to connect with you, right. Particularly when you're [00:25:00] growing your network in this way. And it is, it's probably an important rite of passage as a business owner to get okay with that. Right. And, and honestly, it's a nice gentle exploration of getting comfortable with rejection, to be honest, because it's a very gentle rejection and you often won't even know about it.
But you know, I would say don't expect that you will get a hundred percent acceptance of these connection requests that you make you, you won't get it. So I find that I get about 60 to 65 percent acceptance on mine, and then about 30 percent of people respond to the messages that I send with my invitations.
So I really encourage sending a note with your request. But make sure you keep your connection notes simple and personal and low demand. Right. So, you know, maybe you refer to something that you have in common, something interesting that they have, that they have posted about and really focus on why is it genuinely a connection you'd like to make.
So absolutely don't be the [00:26:00] person who is sending the connection request. And then an hour later is sending the pitch that that's not. So make sure that you're connecting in a, in a genuine fashion. And again, I would say, be careful. So you don't fall foul of LinkedIn restrictions. There are limitations on how many connections you can add do the research on the most current numbers.
And in any event, you need to gradually work up to that, because if you go from zero to zero, you're To, you know, a hundred in a week, you may get flagged as a bot and you you'll get blocked. So you want to gradually work up to that. And so I would say, start with five a day. Five days a week and maybe build to 15 a day over a few weeks.
And then you can start to, you know, get, and then work your way up to the cap, if you have the capacity for that much anyway, so adding people to your network is very important. But once we have people in our network, another reason that LinkedIn is important [00:27:00] is that it is a service. Source of our aggregated professional network.
And it is often a network that we have built up over years and years and many different professional iterations. So I always love to look back over my network and I can kind of see, you know, these, these patterns of people who, when I've worked in with specific industries intensely. So when I was a lawyer, when I.
When I worked at Xerox and I had all these people in this tech industry and, you know, all, all of these things, it's very interesting to look at. But the connections that you have won't exclusively be your ideal client. So it's not the case that everyone in your network is someone that you would say is a warm lead.
And so not everyone will be a client. Not everyone will be a buyer of coaching services, although that can evolve. But. The people from your broader network will also include people who can connect you with those who do. So you need to do some analysis in your, of your network to see. You know, who's who in the zoo, really.
[00:28:00] So if we consider that everyone in your network to some degree is, is, is in your funnel, then we need to have some strategies to be able to prioritize them in order to nurture them appropriately. And we need to go through a process really of categorizing them. And in marketing, we call it segmentation.
So that we can apply customized nurture strategies to each of the categories of people. Now LinkedIn on the face of it doesn't let you do that, but there is a way that you can access and analyze your network data to inform your next step which, which would be your outreach strategy. So I'm going to take you through two steps today.
To help you figure out what to do with your LinkedIn data. And the first thing you need to do is access the data from the backend of LinkedIn and get that data in a usable form. And I'm going to walk you through that in, in a second, and then you need to segment that data and that means creating some sort of coding or categorization systems for your data.
And that could be, you could choose to do that on an industry [00:29:00] basis, right? So for me, I'm, you know, if I think about my coaching clients, I might say you know, I need to categorize people in the legal industry, the resources industry, the FinTech industry, or you might make them role based, right? So I might say.
HR leads business function leaders, law firm partners, or, or you might do both, right? You might do a combination and then of course you need to take some action and implement a tailored outreach strategy. So that's sort of 0. 3, but that is our strategy three, which I'll go through then. So firstly, I want to show you how to access your backend LinkedIn data.
And I'm going to show you live, but I just want you to know that you have this slide that you can download after the session that will tell you specifically how to do that. But for now, let me just stop this share and I'm going to, we're going to go live into LinkedIn. Here we go. Okay. We're going to go live into LinkedIn and I'm going to show you how to do it.
Okay. So you can do it from your homepage. You can do it from your profile page, but it doesn't [00:30:00] really matter. What you want to do is go into the me menu and you're going to go down to settings and privacy. Within settings and privacy, you're going to go onto the left hand column and you're going to go to data privacy.
From data privacy, you're going to go into get a copy of your data. Ah, and you can see I did this yesterday to get a most up to date one, but what you will get is you will get a form here and it will give you a. A selection of categories that you can choose to export the data for. And you would just click on connections, right?
And you would click on connections and you will say download download archive. Right. I'm sorry, not download. It'd be request archive. So hang on, actually, this might let me do it. Yeah, here we go. So this is the form you'd get. So do you want something in particular? Yes, we do. We don't want everything.
Right. Because that will be honestly endless. So we want our connections and so we would [00:31:00] click connections and then you'll get request archive. And I don't have that available. Cause I did that yesterday to get a com a most recent one. Okay. So once you've done that, let me just pop back into the slides.
Once you have done that, then you're going to get an email that looks a little bit like this, and you won't get it for about 10 minutes, right? So in 10 minutes, you'll get this email. It'll say your data archive file is ready for you and you can download it. And that will take you back into LinkedIn.
And when you download from LinkedIn, you are going to get something that comes in a zip file. And I'm just showing you the iterations here. You're going to get this zip file. File zip folder. When you open it up, then you'll see that there are two CSV files in there. You need to open the CSV file using Excel or whatever or pages or whatever you prefer, and then you need to be really cautious to save it as a dot XLS file.
Otherwise it's [00:32:00] going to revert to CSV and not save your changes. So make sure you save it before you start doing your segmentation process. But then you're going to have a spreadsheet that is going to be the basis for your segmentation. Now, this is what your spreadsheets look like. I can't actually share the information of all of the people in my network to show you what it looks like on mass, but here are the categories broadly.
So first name, last name, email address, company position, and when you connect it. You won't get everyone's email address. You'll only get email addresses if people have, have selected to share those proactively. So then when we move into segmentation, you're just going to add an extra column or two on the end.
And you might choose to make it industry, or you might choose to make it role category Or you might add one that is, you know, like referral source, like they're going to be a good person to connect you to other people. So once we have that, well, then how are we going to go about using that data?
And that is segmentation. So the [00:33:00] next step is segmentation. This is a fancy marketing word, but really Really what it is, is it's the step that takes this list of people and makes it data that you can do something with, right? So you have the data, then you have the work to do. And I think this is something that we could probably use AI for.
If you are very clever at that, I personally, I use AI a bit, but I have not used it. For, for spreadsheets and, and data, data navigation yet. So I would, if you are, you could explore that if you were very, very clever. What I suggest sadly is quite a manual process, but it is strangely satisfying. So I recommend taking yourself out for a coffee or a wine or something bring your computer or you can print it out and use a highlighter doing it on the computer.
It's a little bit easier because you can then filter and reorder your data as, as you want to, once you create the categories. But if you're a visual person, you go for colors, right? And you can [00:34:00] do both. First you need to have a sense of what are the key industries that you want to identify within here?
What are the categories that you want to filter by? So think about what is dominant in your network and what are your ideal clients in terms of your target your way forward. So what are the key roles you want to explore or all of those sorts of things create your segmentation categories. So as an example, for me, I might do in industry, I might do legal resources, FinTech consulting engineering, and I might also just see what emerges as, as I go.
Judy has asked in the question, Ellie, will this download all of your connections, no matter how, how many you have? Yes, Judy, it is. So I just got a list of 10, 000. So, so the, the, the length of time it's going to take you to do this segmentation is going to going to be different depending on how many people you have in your network.
But yes, it, it absolutely will. Yeah, yeah, it is, it's, it's a really awesome process. And I'm sorry that I. [00:35:00] Couldn't show you, but I did want to be a bit cautious of the privacy of the people in my network. Does it include those sent, but not yet accepted? No, Mario, it doesn't. It's only people once they have accepted your connection request, you can see the ones that you've sent.
Mario. Yeah, it's sad. Sometimes I'm kind of. happy. I'm like, Oh, it's probably best if I don't know where and when I've been turned down. But I hear you. Okay. So, so we segment it, we break it down into industry or role. And we work through the list and we market with colors. We market with letters. I also suggest having a non priority category where you can catch people that you want to be sure not to connect with.
Right. So it might be like ex colleagues that you would absolutely not want to work with. It might be relatives. It might be just people that, you know, are hard nose for you. So make sure you have a category for that. And then once you have, have segmented it, then you can choose priority areas. Right. So you might want to [00:36:00] start by targeting.
You know, you say, okay, well, I'm going to start with law firm, HR leaders. I'm going to start with mid size retailers in my geography. I'm going to start with law firm partners, right? So you can see then how, how many people are we talking about already in my one network. And you can start to build that, that sales pipeline a little more specifically.
Judy says, what about those in your LinkedIn newsletter? Is that possible? Judy, you can, you can get a list of, of people who are subscribers to your LinkedIn newsletter. I don't know what I would suggest doing is when I clicked connections, maybe there's a category that breaks that down that you could, you could explore and see what data you can get.
But otherwise I'm not sure. Certainly the spreadsheet doesn't have that. Groups you own Mario, again, I would say, see if there was, it was a checkbox on that, that LinkedIn screen, because that would, would make sense to, to be able to do that. And, and the other thing is you could [00:37:00] do some cross referencing.
You could get a VA if you like to, to actually cross reference this master spreadsheet with those groups or those, those members of your LinkedIn newsletter, that would be a good way that you could do that. I feel like AI could do that as well, but. Probably know just enough to be dangerous. So don't take my word for that.
Okay. So now once you've been through this process, you have a nicely prioritized network. What do you do with it? Right? So, so what, so once you have your data, once you've segmented it, you are adding people pretty regularly you're in, you're in pretty good shape, but the biggest challenge I hear from coaches in the accelerator and in my network is it's actually the next bit that is the hardest, which is how do I actually contact these people, right?
What do I say to them? How do I do it without wanting the earth to swallow me whole with the awkwardness of it all? So I'd just like to hear in the chat, [00:38:00] if you don't mind is outreach, something that can feel to you? Do you, do you, you know, is the wording of it? Something that you, you struggle with is the strategy of it awkward.
So just give me a yes, or if there's any particular challenges that, that you experience when it comes to that warm outreach process I know that I have certainly felt that way and sometimes I still do, of course, so I'm going to share sort of three tips to help you with outreach. But I want to say that, you know, if outreach is something that either your, you just don't really have a strategy for, or you struggle with the execution of an outreach strategy, then definitely book a call because we can figure out if the accelerator is going to be a good move for you to help you with that.
Because I know many coaches need support with it because it is quite sophisticated. Strategy really and you are in good company in, in finding it challenging. So firstly, what is [00:39:00] outreach? Warm outreach is how do you connect with the people who are in your network to nurture them as a lead, to become a prospect.
So. You start with folks that you already have a connection of some degree with. And I'm really talking at the moment about outreach on LinkedIn, which means we're talking about outbound messaging to people that you are connected with and that you probably know in some way. And of course, LinkedIn is not your only warm outreach strategy.
It's just one of those. But today I just want to focus on LinkedIn and I also want to be clear that by outreach, what I do not mean. Spamming people, pushy sales tactics, not taking no for an answer. So you can rest assured that that is absolutely not what I teach or what I'm going to share. So the first outreach tip that I have is that you need to have a bank of Reasons to reach out to people, right?
And this is your outreach strategy library, right? [00:40:00] And everyone needs to build a library of strategies for outreach that works for you, for them and for their ideal clients. And so I'm going to share a few examples, but for you, some of these will make sense. Some won't and you will no doubt have more that you would add to this list.
But the first thing I would say is that the best strategy, particularly early on in your communication with, with a lead, Is to focus on genuine connection, right? So that isn't to say you won't talk work, you won't talk business. You definitely will, but just like in coaching, how we need to invest in building rapport in order to have those conversations that, that we want to have as coaches in our outreach, initially, we need to remember that we are talking to people.
And we need to show up as people, not as coaching business robots. And I think coaches are great at that, right? If, if there's anything that you have in your toolkit as coaches, it is great questions and an [00:41:00] ability to connect with people. And so part of what we're doing is just letting that part of ourselves show up in our marketing.
So then once you've, you've done that connection, then you have a bit of a process of experimentation in front of you, really. So here are a few strategies that you can have in your pocket. And, you know, most people will have a two or three go tos that they prefer. The first option is an inquiry or a research strategy.
And this one works really well. My clients and I have used it and it works really well, but it has to be authentic. So what it involves is reaching out to people, asking to have a call or a coffee, depending on where you are to discuss something, right. To get their opinion on something. And it might be something like leadership development in their industry.
The challenges that they're facing in, you know, a particular aspect of leadership in their industry, how the industry or the organization typically develops leaders coaching [00:42:00] in X, Y, Z industry. But there are a few bewares here because it can quickly become a bit of a, you know, a bit, A bit, not, not manipulative, but it can be something that, that clients might think is, is inauthentic pretty quickly.
So firstly, you have to genuinely be interested in the subject and what they have to say about it. It is not going to work if you frame it this way, and then you flip and go in all guns blazing to give a pitch and push your agenda. It absolutely won't work. You have to be genuinely curious and open and really grateful for any information that this person will share with you.
But. There is also a risk that there you can position yourself in a way that is not conducive to building an ongoing consulting or coaching relationship. So you do need to have your own perspectives and something to share about your thoughts or what you've observed in other industries or what you've done in other organizations.
So that you're coming into the [00:43:00] conversation as an equal and not as a junior. And that is the risk of this strategy. So very often these conversations can be very fruitful because. You know, you demonstrate through the questions that you're asking you the depth of your knowledge in this approach, maybe in a different context.
But. But it can be something that can lead to referral or to discussion of specific opportunities, but it is a fine line because you also don't want to come across as being inexperienced. You want to come across as being curious and open. Okay. The next strategy is. If you have something in common, so based on their posts, based on what they've shared, that you leverage that.
And it could be that there's a personal thing. You've noticed that you have a professional connection in some way. And this is sending a message referring to that thing and then asking a question to further the question to further the discussion. Now these messages don't need to be long. It's generally better if they're not.
But just remember, you know, some questions will, will, Transcribed Encourage the [00:44:00] conversation and some questions will kill the conversation a little bit like coaching as well. So, you know, if you go too deep, too personal, too soon, you're going to find that people, you know, like the, the investment of their time and energy in a LinkedIn conversation is not going to be there, so they just won't reply.
You need to think about what is the right level of, of investment, you know, in a question that is going to keep them, them talking. And that gets you closer to talking about, you know, you know, the things that you're both passionate about, which is hopefully, you know, developing leaders, the performance of their team or something like that.
And this one, honestly, you have to practice, get advice. You'll figure out how to, how to balance these ones as well. The most common outreach strategy is that I see. That is when someone has a significant event or an occasion and the standard is that someone would get a promotion or a new role and you send a congratulations message.
And that's fine, but you have to just think about how can you distinguish yourself from potentially hundreds of other well wishers [00:45:00] in, in a message. So, you know, the, the effectiveness of that strategy is You know, yes, you're going to, you know, going to pop up as you, they'll think of you, they'll smile.
They'll be like, Hey, thanks. But it may not further the conversation. So you might need to think about, you know, asking a good question which might be, you know, what's your, what's your biggest priority for, for day one or something interesting like that. I also like the next two options, which are to offer some sort of value.
And the first one I've mentioned is to share a relevant resource, like an article or a link or a video that you've enjoyed and that you think that they might also like and find value in. And it really needs to be relevant. And it can be a great conversation starter. You can also offer some direct value.
And by that, I mean, something like sending an article you've written that is relevant or a white paper or a checklist or a cheat sheet or a worksheet. I sometimes send podcast episodes or free masterclasses. I've got recordings of, if I think they're relevant to that person. And then finally, you can invite them to [00:46:00] something and it might be an event of some sort, like a virtual event or a real life event.
And you know, the sky's the limit here. And this is where we might start crossing over from a purely LinkedIn strategy into something that is more of a a broader strategy for, for engaging with your network. So I would say experiment, figure out which ones feel best for you, which ones work for your audience, and then other add others, like if you have more that you've noticed work in the past, see if you can use those in, in more And different contexts.
You will notice that I haven't included, you know, a pitch message. And that is because on LinkedIn, it doesn't really work to be honest. So typically our goal is to have a conversation and these strategies are to get us to that point, right? We want to get to a place where we're having a conversation and that's when we sort of would enter more of our sales process.
The second tip is that for each of these strategies, you should build some templates. Now this works because you can reduce the friction [00:47:00] between knowing you want to send these messages and actually getting them out the door and eliminating as many decisions and steps as possible to make it more likely that you're going to actually do it.
So your library of strategies can evolve by adding a library of templates and look, when you are preparing a templates, you can absolutely use AI as a writing assistant for this. So if you tell AI, like a chat GPT or a Claude or another example, exactly what you want to write, the tone you want to write in, or not, maybe not exactly what you want to write.
Cause that's what we're trying to get it to help us with. You know, the, the general objectives of what you want to write, the tone you want it to write in the outcomes you want to get from the communication. You'll find that it will get you some great ideas and I would use it as a baseline, and then you can write from there.
One tip I have those ask it to write 10 or 20 versions. So that you can pick and choose the best bits you like from the different options that it provides. And then a very small, but important thing is make sure you save your [00:48:00] templates somewhere easy that you can access them. It's really easy to lose all of this work you've done and have to plow through hundreds of messages to find them.
But if you can develop a master document and try and have a habit of saving updates and refinements or variations that will make your life much easier in the future. But then I end with this most significant tip. And that is that most coaches I meet radically underestimate how much of this that they need to do.
And it's not always the message that people want to hear. But I'm going to, I'm going to make it anyway. So let's come back to our idea of the funnel, right? And remember that these to some degree is a numbers game, especially you know, when we're, when we're in a transition phase or ramping up. So.
You might say, reach out to a hundred of your ideal clients. You might have 30 of them reply to you. You might have 10 of them, and that's probably 10 of them be open to having a chat [00:49:00] after you've engaged with them for a while, three of those people might have a current opportunity and maybe one or two becomes a client.
Now, these are not necessarily the actual numbers you will experience. You could have much higher percentages or lower percentages, but I want to illustrate that it is the activity and the consistency that is required and that it might be more than you were expecting. And I think that's a really important reality check.
So I wanted to be sure to include it here. So people who are successful in using LinkedIn to grow, grow their business are probably doing. A lot more volume than you might think that they are. So it needs to be a habitual and consistent part of what you do in your business development strategy. And also, you know, don't forget a lot of this is not just about implementing the tips themselves, right?
A lot of this is creating habits and visibility overall. And we know that on LinkedIn, Technically it works to be consistent [00:50:00] and to be showing up and to messaging people, because we know that the people that you're messaging with are more likely to see your posts. And it's also more effective energetically because, you know, my coaches always tell me that when they're showing up and when they're being consistent, more opportunities are flowing to them and it's flowing because of the activities, but it's also.
I think because of like an energetic presence as well, which is here. I am like, I'm, I'm here. I'm showing up. I'm visible. So we're embodying that presence and visibility and it's, it's almost annoying how, how effective it is, but we have to do the work. Okay. So, so that is the content of our class today.
I hope, I hope. That was, that was, you know, what you were hoping for. If you have any questions, please do put them in the chat and I'll answer them. I'm going to share with you now, some details about the corporate coach accelerator, and then I'm going to answer any and all questions you have about either what we talked about.
Or about coaching business generally. Okay. So [00:51:00] the main way that people work with me, when they want to do more of this, when they want to grow their executive coaching businesses is through the corporate to coach accelerator. So the accelerator is for executive coaches who want to grow their business with more corporate clients while also working schedule that, that, that works for them.
12 month coaching program that teaches coaches how to build. Their corporate coaching business to surpass their corporate income to surpass the impact that they, they want to have and to sort of reach all of those business goals that, that they have. The sorts of folks who are in the program are coaches who may have been in business for a while, but want to focus more on their corporate practice.
Those who are starting their coaching businesses those who have been in business for a while, but want to take the next step, which might be bringing on associate coaches or doing less associate work themselves. Usually they are feeling some sort of stress about business or sort of. [00:52:00] Stress about a huge goal that they, they want to embrace.
So for example, you might feel like you love coaching, but you don't know if you can make it work financially in the long run. You might be second guessing yourself when it comes to promoting yourself and doing the work of marketing. You know, I see a lot of procrastination and overthinking and perfectionism.
All of which can stop coaches from doing the high impact activities that they need to take to grow their business. And generally there's no issue with coaching, right? The coach coaches love coaching and they want to do more of it. The thing that gets in the way is building the opportunity to do that.
And the stability of a business to allow them to do that. And so, so you, you know, a lot of coaches think that starting the business is the hard bit, but then discover that getting corporate clients is not as easy as they thought. Well, they might have a huge and valuable professional background, but they're not really sure how to leverage that network without feeling too awkward.
And, and for some, it's that they just feel a bit professionally lonely, right? [00:53:00] Especially compared to when they were working in an organization. So. You know, I don't know if any of those ring true for you, but, but the chances are, you know, at least one of those will be important to you. And so you look, our goal in the accelerator is to get your next 10 high paying corporate clients with the business development strategy.
You can implement in under five hours a week and to do it in community and to do it with a coach who's by your side. So. In the next 12 months, like there's lots more information on the website, by the way, which is which Jill has, has posted. But at a high level, when you're a member and you're a member for 12 months, so anyone joining this week is, is joining up for the whole of 2025.
And so the goals are get your next 10 high paying corporate clients. So you feel confident that the business can support you financially now and in the future. You'll leverage your professional experience and your professional network to build your sales pipeline. So to build at least a hundred ideal prospects and constantly be [00:54:00] growing it because we know that the depth of your pipeline and that's the funnel is the biggest predictor of new client flow.
So we're going to be learning how to continue to grow that pipeline. And the more you focus on your pipeline, the healthier it is, the more your business grows. And we take the stress out of marketing by implementing a marketing and BD system that you can implement in five hours a week. Right. And that includes your content, your outreach and your network growth done in that period of time.
We'll build your key assets together that might be building, or it might be a rebrand or a refresh of, of that content. Things like your website. Your LinkedIn profile, your coach bio, your ideal client and, and much more. And we do that during your first 90 days, because with the guidance and accountability and advice, we want to help you avoid procrastination and perfectionism that can derail people in that area really easily.
You're also going to be part of a global network of coaches. As I mentioned earlier on, we've got people around the world, and I think that adds so much richness to the conversation and [00:55:00] we're going to make an impact on the world. So this source of collaboration and brainstorming and support and encouragement is a very strong community that you may feel like you have lost when leaving the corporate world.
You're also going to build a flexible schedule that suits your business and that allows you to show up for all the priorities in your life that may have been pushed to the side in corporate or that you haven't made time for. And of course you'll have a coach and mentor on your side to help you as you go.
So as coaches, we all know the power of having a coach and a mentor when we're in transition and through the accelerator program, you have that you have me by your side every step of the way. And that is honestly such a joy for me. So it's very hands on. I've just listed here, everything that is included.
God, it's it's, it's a, it's a year of. Very intense support. So you have a one on one coaching style kickoff. There is weekly group coaching calls, and there are three calls available every week that you can choose to come to. And they cover time zones that work for everyone around the world. There is a 90 day quick start [00:56:00] challenge where we'll hit all of those assets.
There is a business development accelerator framework, which is what exactly you should do in those five hours a week. There is the corporate to coach blueprint, the foundational course of building a coaching business. You have access to that. And then you also have access to unlimited reviews and feedback from me on things like your website, your bio proposal documents, things like that.
So you can submit them to me and I'll just record a video giving you feedback on that. The global network, there is a portal that has got so many masterclasses, the archive of coaching calls, workshop series, you name it. Templates tools. And then finally, my favorite new thing that I'm announcing in this, in this launch is we have a private podcast feed now, which is that we're going to be putting all of our coaching calls will be on a private podcast.
So if you don't make the call or you can't make a call and you've submitted a question, or if you're just interested in everyone else's questions, you can listen to that on the go. Okay. So a few [00:57:00] testimonials. You know, really the themes of the feedback are that people value the scaffolding, the support and the ideas that we can bring and that we remove the, the guesswork and that there are so many resources that are based on, on my experience that I'm bringing and that there's a clear path forward, right?
That we're not having to, the coaches are not having to create it all from scratch. And so, yeah, plenty of those, but I want to jump forward to an offer for you. So doors are open this week and there are some amazing bonuses that are still available. So firstly, if you join by the end of the day on Wednesday, 27th, November, which is tomorrow.
You receive a free month of access, which makes your 12 month membership, a 13 month membership and gives you access immediately for all of December. So all the calls, the portal access, the digital course, the blueprint, everything is available to you immediately. And you'll get an invitation to our [00:58:00] 2025 planning intensive, which happens in early December.
If you join after Wednesday and before doors close, you will still receive the 500 discount on the overall price. And you'll get access to the blueprint digital course, and then you'll officially start on the 1st of January. I want to offer you all as a bonus for coming to this webinar. That if you join before doors close on Friday, you'll receive the discount and the blueprint And also an additional free one on one coaching strategy session with me So these are usually charged out at at sort of over a thousand dollars per session for my corporate clients So it's pretty great value and I'd be really, I really love doing these sessions.
So I would love to do it with you and we'll automatically cross check names. So if you join during the next week, you'll automatically get a link to book that call anytime during your year of membership, I have also opened up lots of time for calls over the next few days. So if you're wondering if this is a good investment in yourself or your business for 2025, I'm really happy to have a [00:59:00] chat with you.
And obviously I am not a high pressure person, so there's no pressure to do that. We'll talk about your business, your challenges, and what priorities you have to hit your goals in 2025. So book a call. Jill has posted that link that's there. And if you have any issues finding times that suit your time zone, just drop me a message and we'll find something that works.
So let me just answer questions. Now I'm going to take the slides off and answer questions. So Laura says, is there only one intake per year? No, Laura, I do. I do open to cohorts at other times. I'm just not sure when yet. So it's usually two to three times a year. But what I have noticed is that this is probably, this is the only one scheduled.
But you, you, there may be opportunities to, to get in later next year. And we can certainly have, have a chat about that. If, if that works. I would say this is a really good deal though, pricing wise. So the, the price does seem [01:00:00] to, to be going up. So this is a good chance to, to lock it in. And when you join, you do, you do lock in your price consistently.
Okay. So. I will, any other questions? So I'm open for any questions, coaching business or accelerator questions, anything. I know some people have had to drop off cause we hit the hour. Yeah, Jill, Jill, I just read back to see your mind is spinning a bit. I know there is a lot, and that is one thing I like to do in the accelerator is sort of just remove the spin.
There's still a lot, there's always going to be a lot, but we can break it down. We can break it down. You can have support. Okay. Well, I might, I might stop it there. Look, everyone, I would love to chat with you. Please do book in. Let's have a chat. Let's have a call and yeah, I really wish you all the very best. Thank you so much for coming along.
And yeah, have a wonderful rest of your day.
