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Refining a business model, developing a marketing strategy

The Challenge: 

The Client does a considerable amount of coaching work with individuals and teams, to transform their communication and presentation skills. He felt that his practice wasn't achieving its full potential and he wanted to explore other avenues that could increase sales and generate more income for him and his family.

What we did:  

We explored in depth the types of work the Client does, who benefits the most from it and how the Client could avail of the opportunities presented by technology to extend his reach and consequently add an extra income stream.  Having defined his preferred potential clients and how reach for his services could be extended, we focused on how to build the Clients brand, the language that could be used and the types of marketing channels where his effort needed to be focused. We ran into a very big issue when it emerged that the client had an instinctive dislike of marketing and promotion.  On one level he knew it was necessary but he couldn't help thinking that he would rather not do it!  After much work on understanding where the attitude came from he was able reframe his previous attitudes into new, much more productively focused ideas on how to promote his talent and skills.

The Outcome:

The Client had

  • His unique service offering and the benefits it brings to his clients defined
  • A clear idea of the clients he wished to work with and who would most benefit from his work
  • A plan for how he was going to operate his business in the future, with income from both active sources from working directly with clients and from passive sources of online training and tutorials.
  • A strategy for how he was going to market his business to attract the right clients.

The Breakthrough:  

During the course of our work, the client discovered some underlying false narratives he had built up around marketing and promotion.  These misconceptions were limiting the promotion of his services and reducing his capacity to get work, leaving him frustrated and unfulfilled the business was not achieving its potential.  He replaced these misconceptions with a new approach to marketing, branding and promotion, developing a positive plan for actions he could implement rapidly to acquire more of the clients he particularly wanted and roll out the online element of his coaching practice.

What the client said afterwards.

"I wanted to define the growth plan for my business and the marketing objectives necessary to achieve that.  A few hours with Aoife transformed my approach to marketing and helped me focus on getting the clients I really wanted”  Mark Downey, Speech and Presence