#053 How To Build a Coaching Brand
Branding is key for any business even solopreneurs. A Brand is what makes you memorable, what makes you different. This is what sets you apart from others, and it is important in order to stand out and be chosen by prospective customers.
The most successful coaches have great brands – personal brands. As a coach you are chosen not just for your qualifications and track record but also for being you.
Prospective clients will get to know you to understand if they are an energetic match – coaching and coachees spend a lot of time in intimate conversation so it is important for your prospects to see you s someone they can potentially connect to. And that’s a matter of chemistry.
This is why your Brand needs to have all the elements that make up your chemistry – who you are. So that your prospects can take an informed decision. A brand should repel those you don’t want to work with and attract those you love to work with.
In this Episode we talked about:
- Building your personal Brand: The 4 steps to building a strong personal brand for your coaching business.
- Your Personality and why it matters for Personal Branding: Your personality is the core of your brand when you’re building a coaching practice.
- Define your Core Values to define your Brand: What values do you live by? What values do you manage your business by?
- Find your Band Story: Look for the stories in your brand. Your own and those of your clients.
- Define your Messaging: Be clear about who you’re for and who you’re not for.
- Briefing your designer and photographer: Getting clear about your Brand will help you give clear instructions to your logo designer and photographer.
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Building your coaching Brand (00:00):
In today’s episode, we’re gonna talk about how to build a coaching brand. So building a coaching brand is a little bit different to building other types of brands. And this happens because you’re branding yourself. Now, even if you decide to have a name for your business that is not your own, you will still need to brand yourself and find the right approach. So what makes branding for coaches a little bit different? So the first thing is definitely that you are branding a person as a product, you are selling yourself. And as a human being, you have more than one aspect to you. So it’s not just about the business because coaches spend a lot of intimate time with their clients. Even if they do groups, there’s still a lot of intimate contact. So when you’re selling yourself, it’s also a matter of allowing people to understand what you’re like so that they can understand if this relationship between the two of you can work.
What Branding is NOT (01:07):
So putting as much of yourself as possible into your brand is going to really help. But let’s backtrack a little bit. A lot of people confuse branding with the visual side of the brand, which is the logo, your brand colors, the kind of imagery that you use. This is very much part of your brand. However, that is the design side. When we talk about branding for coaches, that part is important too, but that certainly does not come first, and I think this is where a lot of people go wrong. So here is the right order in which to approach your branding when you’re a coach. So the first thing you need to think about is what is it about yourself that is really going to appeal to your clients personality with your purpose? And no one can touch you. This is such an important line for coaches.
Align your Personal Brand with Your Personality (02:02):
It’s such an important quote because aligning your personality with what you’re going to achieve for your clients is what is going to make you unbeatable. There are no two people that are exactly alike in the world. So if you really look for your strengths and you can align them with what you’re offering to your clients, that is gonna make your brand really, really clear. It’s going to make it strong and it’s going to make working with you a very natural process for the kind of clients that you want to attract. And chances are, it doesn’t happen in every case, but it happens quite a lot that coaches are their own ideal client because they have a coach that has changed their life and then they became coaches themselves even more. Getting this right, finding the right strengths, the right elements of your personality and your history that are going to strengthen your brand are gonna make a whole
Attract the Right People Repel the Wrong Coaching Clients (02:58):
Load of difference attracting the people you wanna work with. And to some extent, repelling the ones that you don’t want to work with to make this part of the branding correct. You need to ask yourself certain questions. Cause you need to know two things. You need to know your unique selling proposition, why are you unique? And you need to know your core values. So here are some questions you can ask yourself. Ask yourself what makes you different, what makes you better? What makes you a perfect match for your ideal clients? What makes you repel people who you don’t want to work with? Get clear about your values. What do you believe in? For example, micro values are freedom, family adventure. And then I have a subset of core values which are perseverance, philanthropy, simplicity, and peace. What are the things you value? Because the things you value are gonna become your business’s core values, and this is the glue that’s gonna make the right people stick around.
Your Brand Story (03:57):
The next thing you wanna do is get clear on what your brand story is going to be. You’ve had many experiences over the years, but what is gonna be your brand story, which are the stories that are gonna contribute to your marketing and your branding? So taking it back to what Oprah Winfrey said, what is it that’s gonna align your personality with your purpose? So your brand story is going to be definitely aligned with your core values and also with your story, but you of course have to dig a little bit deeper. So here are some questions you might want to ask yourself. Why do you do what you do? What problems have you been through that your ideal goes through as well? Have you failed on your journey and then found your way to success? Why did he decide to do what you do?
(04:48):
How do you help your clients? And do you have a process for them? Is this process connected to your beliefs and to your story? What did your personal experience teach you about what you coach? And basically what your clients really wanna know is how did this journey change your life? Because they really want to know how it’s gonna change theirs. So you also need to let them know within this story how it changes your life and how you can help them with this too, and what difficulties they’re likely to encounter and how you’re gonna help them overcome these difficulties. So your brand story can also overflow a little bit into your marketing messaging, which is our next point because your marketing messaging is extremely important. And for this, I just have one tip. The more niche it is, the better. People need to be able to listen to your message and say, Yeah, she works with people like me. She helps them with problems like mine. Once you’re clear about what the elements of your personality and your brand story are going to be and what your values
Brief your Designer and Photographer to Create Great brand Visuals (05:56):
Are, then it’s going to become so much easier for you to go to a designer and a photographer and tell them, Hey, this is what my brand is about. Give me the visuals to go with it. And of course, you might also like to perhaps write some messaging before so that they know the kind of messaging that is going to be carried with the photography. Especially because very often the messaging is going to inspire the photography and when you have messaging and photography that really go together, that makes for a much, much stronger brand. Okay, so today we covered the four steps to building a great coaching brand, and we talked about building your personal brand specifically with the first two steps, which are looking at your personality and identifying your core values. Then we moved on to the brand story and finally the messaging. And of course, the final tip was to make sure that you document these and use them to brief the people who are going to create the visual aspect of your brand.
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About the Show
In the Profitable Online Coaching podcast, Stephanie and her expert guests answer the most common online coaching and coach marketing questions to help you unravel the facts and take the right next step for your coaching business.
On solo episodes and with guests, she talks about popular topics such as marketing for coaches, blogging, digital marketing strategies, pricing, mindset, and how coaches build successful businesses.
Stephanie is an experienced SEO Content Marketing Strategist as well as a Marketing Coach for Coaches. She talks about online marketing strategies, social media, search engine optimization (SEO), marketing tools, books, and much more.
She learned programming as a fresh graduate and has worked as a trainer, programmer, and web consultant for over 15 years before becoming an online coach. For the last 6 years, she has offered 1:1 coaching and Online Programmes designed for coaches, therapists, and online service providers. She also offers Content strategy sessions and SEO Content Consultancy services to 6, 7 & 8 figure coaches. Contact her on hello@stephaniefiteni.com.
