By: Sabrina Schleicher, PhD, PCC, BCC

This question recently came in from a new coach:

Sabrina, I am eager to get my coaching practice off the ground, but I have very little money to spend on marketing and advertising. Where should I start? What’s the best way to use the limited money I have?

This is a dilemma many new coaches encounter. We need paying clients, but it feels scary to spend our precious dollars on marketing and advertising when there is no money coming in. To complicate matters even further, there are so many advertising options available---Yellow Page ads, a website, business cards, brochures, flyers, Google AdSense, Facebook ads...and the list goes on. It’s hard to know what would be a good investment of those precious dollars.

When I talk to new coaches who have invested in advertising, I often hear disappointing results with respect to generating paying clients from the money invested. That’s the bad news.

Now for the good news: The best marketing costs very little and when done well, doesn’t even feel like marketing. One of my clients recently described this highly effective approach to marketing as “Relationship Marketing.”

So what is Relationship Marketing? Relationship Marketing is all about building relationships with our Ideal Clients. Any good relationship is built on a solid foundation of trust, along with mutual like and respect for one another.

Here’s an overview of how to start utilizing Relationship Marketing:

Step 1: Seek first to understand(ah! this habit of highly effective people shows up yet again).Take the time to get to know your Ideal Potential Clients. What’s important to them? Where are they struggling? What keeps them awake at night? What do they want more than anything else?

Take a few people to coffee. Invite people you feel might be Ideal Clients. Tell them you are creating an offering for people like them and you would love their input. People like to help. Most everyone says “yes!” to this invitation.

Ask powerful questions about their situation(click here to get my word-for-word Market Research Interview script with the best powerful questions to ask).

Step 2: Ask to stay in contact. Ask if they would be open to receiving helpful tips and tools to address the struggles they shared with you. Also, ask if they know more people like themselves with whom you should be talking.

By now, you’ve established a connection with your Ideal Potential Clients. You listened to them. Listening deeply to another human being is the greatest gift we can offer. They feel a connection with you and you haven’t had to sell anything. Plus, they know you are very interested in their situation and committed to creating an offering that addresses their important, urgent problems.

Step 3: Send them something helpful.Pass along an article, a tip or a resource. You can do this in the form of a short newsletter that you send out to the people you interviewed. Make a commitment to do this at least once a month. This is how you continue to stay in contact and remind your Ideal Potential Clients you are there to help.

The Result: You are gradually becoming a trusted resource in their eyes. Your “Know, Like, and Trust” factor goes up each time you share something of value with your Ideal Potential Clients.

Step 4: Once you have talked to enough people that you feel you have clarity on who your Ideal Client is and what they are struggling with, create an irrisistible coaching offering that addresses their important, urgent problems.

As you develop your offering, those with whom you’ve conducted Market Research will have a vested interest in helping you get the word out to others. After all, they had a hand in helping you create your offering!

There’s a lot more to Relationship Marketing than I can get into here, but this gives you an idea about what it’s all about--showing a genuine interest in your Ideal Clients, and continually looking for ways to be a valuable resource to them. If you start with these steps, when you are ready with your offering, you’ll have potential clients waiting in the wings to work with you!

Notice the cost of this marketing “campaign”...about 12 cups of coffee. Enjoy!

Dr. Sabrina Schleicher specializes in training coaches and therapists to double their Ideal Clients so they can build thriving, lucrative practices working part-time. Get her free audio training, "3 Secrets to Doubling Your Ideal Clients in 90 Days," plus script to discover exactly what your Ideal Clients want from you at www.tapthepotentialcoaching.com

Do you have a burning question about marketing or growing your coaching practice? Send it to me at admin@tapthepotential.com with “ILCT Blog” in the Subject Line and I may answer it in an upcoming blog post.