A lead generation strategy is an important aspect of starting and maintaining a business, particularly a coaching one, since sales have more to do with singular clients instead of a mass market like with some other types of businesses.

Therefore, especially at the beginning of your coaching journey, you’ll need to build a lead generation strategy before you can really even expect to make your first few sales. And luckily, today we’ll be talking about how exactly you can do that!

But first…

What is a lead generation strategy?

If you’re new to the business world then you may not even know what a lead generation strategy is, although the name probably gave you a good idea.

Basically, a lead generation strategy is a planned series of steps that you want to take as a business in order to find and cultivate new leads. Or in other words, it’s how you’re going to build your base of clients.

Today’s guide on how to make one will focus on one area of the strategy per day, and by the end of seven days, you’ll have a full lead generation strategy. I’ve broken it down in this way so that you can make sure each area of the strategy is strong, and so you won’t get overwhelmed while you’re creating it.

Let’s begin!

Day One – Figure Out Your Target Demographic

Before you can start on any other areas of a lead generation strategy, you need to know which leads you want to generate in the first place. So on your first day of development, I want you to focus on figuring out what your target demographic is.

Consider things like…

• Age
• Gender
• Likes/Dislikes
• Needs/Wants
• Etc

Create a full profile in your mind of who you’re looking to find with your lead generation strategy, and also list people who you aren’t targeting.

For example, lets say that you’re a career coach that specializes in helping people figure out which field they want to go into. You’re probably more interested in targeting young adults who are just getting started in the workplace than you are middle aged adults with previous work experience.

So think of your own ideal customer range, and keep it in mind throughout the rest of the process.

Day Two – Identify The End Goal Of Your Lead Generation Strategy

Now on the second day, we’re going to take a few steps forward and in the following days begin to work our way backwards. This is an unorthodox approach to building a lead generation strategy, but I believe it’s an efficient one.

So for day two, your focus needs to be on figuring out exactly where your lead generation strategy is going to end up. Do you want potential leads to end up purchasing an eBook, hiring you for a service, paying for a membership to a program, buying an online course you created, etc?

By deciding what you want your ideal client to end up doing, you’re clarifying things so that your future self has more information to work with. If you already have a solid business plan then this might even be the easiest part of the process for you!

Day Three – Come Up With A Way To Convince Potential Clients To Actually Make The Purchase

No matter which variation you chose, the end of all lead generation strategies is to make some type of sale. So on day three, we’re going to figure out exactly how to make that happen for you and your business by sharing some examples of what strategies other business owner’s in the field employ.

• Share Testimonials – People are a lot more likely to actually buy something if they have some sort of insurance that it will provide value to them. Testimonials of other people who made a purchase from you and enjoyed the results could do the trick.
• Give Them A Preview – Especially depending on your product, this could be a similar strategy to the last. By showing clients a little snippet of what they can expect from their purchase, they’ll be left wanting more.
• Make Sure Your Pricing Is Optimal – And finally, if you really want people to make the jump and purchase your product/service then you’ll need to make sure your pricing scheme is reasonable. If you’re not making enough sales, then you may need to consider lowering them a bit.

Depending on your business model, these things may or may not work for you. But nevertheless, you’ll need a final selling point to get people over that last hump.

Day Four – Devise A Plan To Get Potential Client’s Information

Many times, clients will need several pushes to clear the hump we just talked about. And if this is the case, it can be extremely important to find a way to remind them of your business over and over again. This is where gaining their information can come in handy.

I’m sure you’ve been on a website in the past and seen a popup that asked for your email in exchange for something like… a discount notification on the product you’re looking at or a special newsletter with more information than is available on the site.

This is one of the ways that business owners are trying to gain information from their clients; this way they can send custom offers and reminders of their products/services to the client directly.

During day four, I want you to think of a way to complete this strategy yourself. Think about your target demographic again, what would tempt them enough that they would share their information with you?

Day Five – Find A Way To Keep Clients Interested In Your Business

But now, taking another step back, how did you get your client to the point where they’d even consider giving their information to you? That’s what this step is all about! During this step, you’ll create a strategy to interest people in what you have to say so that they’ll stick around for the step we just made.

At this stage in the lead generation strategy, potential consumers may or may not be interested in spending money or time on you. But people are always interested in one thing, gaining value from something. So the single most effective way to get people to stick around is to give them something valuable up front.

For some, this might be providing a small sample of their coaching through mediums like videos, blog posts, newsletters, or podcasts. They’ll share valuable information, but keep a lot to themselves so that consumers know they have to complete other steps to unlock the rest.

It can be a tough balance, but you want to interest future clients without giving everything away.

Day Six – Think Of A Strategy To Gain Initial Interest In Your Business

Day six is all about the most basic part of the lead generation strategy, how to attract leads and bring them into the rest of the funnel. Before you can interest new clients and tempt them to buy what you’re offering, you need to get their attention first!

Popular methods for this part of the lead generation strategy include…

• Social media
• Word of mouth
• Networking
• Ads
• Etc

As time goes on, you’ll likely be able to cross out methods that don’t work for you and try new methods in their place. Because this step in the strategy is one of the easiest to change if it isn’t working out. But you’ll still need a plan to start with.

Networking and word of mouth are free tools; but they’ll require a lot more work from you. Ads can be very effective but they’re also expensive. And social media is one of the most popular ways to advertise nowadays but it’s saturated. You’ll need to weigh the pros and cons of each option before making a decision.

Day Seven – Refine Your Lead Generation Strategy

Now that you have a plan for each part of your strategy, I want you to walk yourself through each step…

1. Clients finding your business
2. Clients giving you some information
3. Clients gaining more interest in your business
4. Clients making the purchase and completing the cycle.

And after you’ve walked through the scenario, if there are any holes in the plan that you noticed along the way, try to find ways to troubleshoot them. This is your last chance to refine your lead generation process before trying it out for the first time, so make sure to be thorough.

If for instance, after considering the strategy in its entirety, you believe that clients won’t make the jump to give you information after being initially attracted; then figure out a way to make that part of the plan stronger. So on and so forth.

This last step will be complete the moment you feel the all the steps lead effortlessly into each other!

Why is lead generation so important for a young business?

Ultimately, lead generation is important for businesses that are just getting started because the success rates of the lead generation will show you whether or not your business is ready to exit the starting stages.

For instance, a good goal to aim for would be to successfully obtain ten organic leads, if you can do that then you know your strategy is working and that your business has potential. Any less than ten organic leads, and it might be signaling that you’re working on a hobby that isn’t ready to be a business yet.

If you follow the steps laid out in this guide then you’ll greatly increase your chances of hitting that goal! But if you don’t, just remember that you can always try again later with a more refined business idea.