Creating referrals and having clients renew with you is one of the best things you can do for your coaching practice. It is unknown for many coaches, but you can build a full coaching practice where you have 75% of your clients renewing every year, which means less time wasted on sales and marketing.
In this episode, Ankush Jain shares his best business strategies for getting more referrals and nurturing them so you can keep sustainably growing your coaching business.
Watch this LIVE video to learn all about coaching business strategies for more referrals and renewals & practical tips on how to nurture those referrals.
Key take aways :
- Why are referrals so important to your business.
- Effective ways to ask for them.-
- How to nurture those relationships over time
- How to get clients to renew with you.
About the speaker: Ankush Jain is a Principles-based coach, author, podcast host and public speaker based in the UK with clients all over the globe. He is the founder of The Powerful Men's Group and runs sold-out deep-dive immersions in the UK since 2015. Ankush also coaches other coaches and life coaches to grow impactful and sustainable practices and he is the author of the book: Sweet Sharing: Rediscovering The Real You.
THE ELEVATE YOUR COACHING BUSINESS Workshop series is targeted at ambitious coaches. It will provide you with the coaching tools and give you insight on how to build a sustainable coaching business. You will also learn about some of the best practices and find out how to strategically grow your client base. This workshop series is a unique opportunity to get inspired and learn from some of our renowned Delenta Innovative coaching platform community members.
What is a business strategy?
A business strategy is a plan that helps a business achieve its goals. It outlines the plan of action to achieve the vision and set objectives of an organisation and guides the decision-making processes to improve the company’s financial stability in a competing market.
Why are referrals so important to your business?
Yourself and best life coaches may be asking themself “why referrals are so important to my coaching business?”. Throughout this episode, Ankush explains that referrals and renewal rates are vital to have a long-term sustainable coaching business. It is normal to start out with very few referrals and renewals but becoming a professional full-time coach requires you to focus on this aspect of your business in order to really thrive. As a coach, word-of-mouth is a vital aspect of your business. By having referrals and reviews from trusted customers who have renewed with you, new potential clients will be more inclined to trust you and work with you. Thus, growing your business, monetisation and coaching reputation.
Moreover, if most of your clients are coming from referrals and renewing with you, you can spend less time on marketing and much more time on coaching your clients. You will then enter a virtuous cycle where the more time you have to coach, the better you get at coaching. The better you get at coaching, the more referrals and renewals you get. The more referrals and renewals you get, the more time you have to coach (and this cycle loops on).
How do I nurture relationships and get clients to renew with me?
For both referrals and renewals, the best strategy is to be a really good coach. Every coach (beginner to professional) helps people, but there are varying levels. Coaching is a never-ending journey throughout which the coach helps the clients using consultancy skills to uncover what is already there. Coaching isn’t about teaching but rather about guiding a client during many years.
“At the beginning I only knew what to do with a client for about 2 sessions. That’s because I didn’t understand what coaching was. I thought it was like teaching. As I started coaching more and more, I realised there was so much deeper I could go and I found that there was no end to the progress I could make with a client.” (Ankush Jain)
Ankush explains that a coach-client relationship is never ending journey. As a professional coach, you can guide your client through an infinite amount of paths and it isn’t about your knowledge but rather about your understanding and skills as a coach.
Some coaching schools say long-term clients are a ‘failure’ as they believe this means the client’s need hasn’t been met. On the other hand, Ankush believes that it shouldn’t be about making the client dependant on you but rather about the client saying “I don’t want this process to stop”. It’s about the process, not the coach. Overtime, your clients will bring different things (issues, worries, etc) to the table than they did at the beginning. A long-term client will be using your expertise for various steps of their journey, which itself has no end point.
What are the most effective ways to ask for referrals?
Ankush explains that he doesn’t typically ask his clients for referrals as this is something that takes place at the end of the journey. What truly helped Ankush get referrals was getting better at creating impact and helping with his clients’ deeper transformation. Referrals then started coming in by themselves. If you have a positive impact on your clients, they will be inclined to refer you to people they believe could benefit from your coaching abilities. If the quality of your work is good, clients will refer you.
This being said, sometimes it can be the right moment to ask a client for a referral. In this case, Ankush shares his expert advice on what you should say to your client:
“If there’s anyone in your world who could benefit from a conversation or two with me, I’m happy for you to gift that to them.”
By wording your referral request as such, the client no longer views it as a task and something you are asking them to do for you. Instead, it is regarded as a gift you are giving them in order to allow themselves to help others.
A few steps to becoming a better coach
If the best way to get referrals and renewals is to become a better coach, then how do I become a better coach?
Ankush shares top tips on how to become the best coach you can be:
1) Studying
It’s important to not study only to get to a certain level (finishing a course, getting a qualification) and then stopping. The key is to never stop studying. As a coach, there are an infinite amount of things you can learn about and people you can learn from that will help you along your coaching journey. Whether it’s about your field of work, business building, human relations (and lots more!), there are so many things you can study in order to grow as a coach and as a person.
2) Coach!
This may sound obvious, but if you’re coaching for 1 hour a week versus coaching for 20 hours a week, there is a big difference. Don’t be shy to practice! (You can even coach your friends, family, etc)
3) Get Coached
Every coach needs coaching. Ankush, like many other coaches, gets coached and has been working with his coach for years. He explains that by doing so, he gets reference experience of what it’s like to be coached for 7 years by the same coach. When having your own coach, you can even ask them for feedback and guidance regarding issues or questions you have about your coaching and your clients.
Ankush assures the listeners that they will obtain more referrals and renewals by following these 3 key tips.
Watch the full episode to learn more about this coaching business strategy.
Would you like to make a positive and lasting difference to others, just like Ankush does? Would you like to craft a sustainable coaching business from the comfort of your own home with your own life coaching app? Become the coach you’ve always wanted to be!
