Better Bolder Braver Blog

It is said that good marketing is being able to identify and name a potential client’s problem to be solved but in doing so, we might be opening up unconscious wounds. The more specific the problem we are looking to address, the more niched and nuanced our message, the more likely we are to sell a service. But what are the psychological ramifications of this opening up and exposure? How confident are we in offering a psychological antidote?

Person disgusted by ice cream

What’s your favourite flavour of ice cream? Mine’s pistachio. Maybe yours is too. Or maybe it’s rum & raisin… coffee & walnut… chunky monkey! Whatever you like best, it’s unlikely to be vanilla. Vanilla is fine, vanilla can be great, vanilla goes with most things, vanilla is… if not liked by everyone, at least unlikely to be actively disliked. Vanilla is mass marketing, designed to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. It may be nobody’s first choice but it’s an acceptable option. Vanilla marketing may get you clients but are they the clients you want? Imagine pistachio marketing (or rum & raisin, etc.): unique, unlike any other flavour, distinctive taste, vibrant colour, not for everyone and sometimes hard to find but also a flavour that people actively seek out…

Person Surfing

Have you done coaching training? Where did it leave you in terms of confidence about marketing yourself? Do you feel part of a community of graduates of that training programme? What does collaboration mean to you? We discussed all these questions in our Monday Masterclass session when we had the pleasure of talking to one of our favourite coaching training providers, Lucy Mullins, about “Life after Coaching Training”. Learn more about Lucy’s advice for coaches just starting out, the task treadmill and how lucy balances doing and being in order to be more productive in this article.

Frances, Karen and Simon on the Ethical Marketing with Karen Webber Crowdcast session

We spoke to Karen Webber on the practice of Ethical Marketing in our Monday Masterclass session. We talked quite a bit about the “what-not-to-dos” of good and fair marketing, but we also went quite deep quite quickly into how Ethical Marketing serves ourselves as well as our audience and customers. We also discovered how marketing is like your favourite flavour of ice cream, everyone has their own and it’s actually really hard to please everyone without being vanilla.

Simon working at a computer

Many coaches seek out or create communities for their clients. It is often said that creating an ‘online course’ is the answer to many coaching business problems. For some of your clients, a group coaching process may be the best way forward. And that’s another kind of community – one in which people on a coaching journey (and you, their guide!) can support each other. The reality of creating either of these is often a lot more work than you might expect and it’s easy to be overwhelmed when searching for online tools. In this blog, we share our research on the best options for building an online coaching community.