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If you want to be successful in business, you need high-quality leads. If you’re in the coaching or consulting business, then you know that generating leads can be a challenge. Although a lack of high-quality leads is a huge problem in the coaching and consulting industry, there are ways to find those leads who are interested in what you have to offer and are willing to pay for your services.
Most of my clients come to me with the same question, “how do I get more high-quality leads for my coaching business?” While there is not a one-size-fits-all answer to this question, knowing how to get more people in your pipeline is the key to attracting more leads. This is one of the aspects I work on intensively with my clients. We work on building their expert authority so they can fill their pipeline with prospects who will benefit from their gifts to make the impact they desire while also earning a great income.
Here are the three main types of lead generation traffic that will help you fill your pipeline. The first type is well-known, and many coaches and consultants use it. It’s free/organic traffic.
Using Free and Organic Traffic for Lead Generation
The term free is a bit misleading. A more accurate description of this kind of free, organic traffic is earned traffic. Although you are not paying money and investing in paid advertising, you are earning your potential prospect’s attention by putting in the time to write or produce great content. It takes a sheer amount of effort to launch a free traffic strategy and build what I call your “body of work” online.
When I first started my business, I hired a consultant who said that I did not have a “body of work” online and that I needed to start working on that right away. If you feel you are caught in the trap of being a “generalist” and you want to rise to “expert authority” and one day become a “thought leader” in your area of expertise, then you must build your own “body of work.” This means you must create an online presence where your name is synonymous with the problem that you solve for the market that you serve. This is essential to becoming an authority in your area of expertise. The sooner you get started, the better.
If you’d like to learn more about the terms I just mentioned, “the trap of the generalist, expert authority, and thought leader,” check out my free Guide on the Ladder of Influence. You will learn the four levels of influence and quickly identify what level you are on. Understanding this will help you strategically climb the ladder so you can scale your coaching or consulting business to 6 or even 7-figures. (add link where it’s highlighted for the Guide.)
As a coach or consultant, one of the most important things you can do to attract high-quality leads is to focus on creating and promoting content that is high quality and informative.
There are many types of content you can put out there. If you know you are good with video and you know how to produce quality video content, you can create a video to share on YouTube or other social media platforms to help generate high-quality leads for your coaching or consulting business. You may have a good voice, but you don’t feel confident on camera, and decide to use audio or produce a podcast as a free traffic strategy. If you are a great writer, you can focus on your writing skills to produce written content for lead generation. Some people are visual and enjoy creating content that is visually stimulating whether they use branded photos or high-resolution documents with their message on them.
There are many ways that you can create content and I recommend not only focusing on your strength or your natural skill set, but also keeping in mind that your ideal audience will consume information in a multitude of ways. This means that it’s important to create content for people who enjoy reading, for those who enjoy watching videos, and for those who enjoy listening to audio or podcasts.
Although the medium you use to deliver your content whether it’s video, articles, or a podcast, when it comes to generating high-quality leads for high-ticket offers, your content must achieve several objectives.
The first objective is making sure you are speaking directly to your ideal client and their pain points. You must show them that you understand their problem and educate them on your solution. You must be able to show them how you could solve their problem and get them out of pain. Many coaches and consultants miss the mark with their messaging, and this greatly impacts their ability to get quality leads for their coaching or consulting business. Approximately 90% of the coaches and consultants who come to me are stuck because of a messaging and positioning problem. If this is an area you struggle with, I highly recommend working with a strategist who knows what they are doing and can help you fine-tune your message. Not having your message nailed down can keep you stagnant for years.
Another objective of your content is to position yourself as the expert, meaning you are the best person to solve their problem, and that your solution is the very best option for them.
Imagine your ideal clients are in a valley of pain and they are going to hire you to take them to the top of the mountain where their goals can be achieved. You are the Sherpa who is going to guide them up the mountain and your solution is the map to get them there the fastest and easiest way possible.
When it comes to generating the highest quality leads for a high-ticket business, it’s important that your messaging hits upon both the pain point and the solution so that it’s crystal clear you are the very best person for them to hire to help them.
Another key aspect of your free traffic content strategy should be social proof. There is power in testimonials of others you have helped. A huge part of how I built my business to the size it is today, was by focusing heavily on the client delivery side and making sure my clients were empowered to get the best results possible. You must focus on delivering your very best to make sure you are empowering your clients to get results. Then you can get those great testimonials and use them to grow your brand reputation. If you want more leads for your coaching and consulting business, social proof is key. The old adage is true; the more people you help the more people will want your help, but you have to tell the world about those results.
There are other objectives in your free traffic content strategy that you need to meet. Creating trust and rapport and being able to articulate your value with your potential clients is key to turning them into paying clients. Understanding this content strategy needed to build your tribe, is essential to generating leads using free and organic traffic. Again, if this is not your area of expertise, I highly recommend hiring an experienced coach who knows how to attract high paying clients with lead generation strategies.
Using Paid Traffic for Lead Generation
The second type of traffic is paid traffic. Anytime you open a social media page or app, you have probably noticed all of the advertisements from people who are trying to sell you their products and services that they think you might be interested in buying. This is paid traffic and it can be a very lucrative strategy for generating leads for your coaching and consulting business, but it can also be a huge money pit. I have had many clients come to me who have invested tens of thousands of dollars in paid advertising with 0 return. Paid traffic is a sophisticated strategy that you must understand before investing heavily into it.
When it comes to getting the highest quality leads for your high-ticket programs, it’s essential you use a high-converting funnel so your paid traffic strategy will work. Many coaches and consultants try to drive traffic to generate leads in their business without a funnel. Some have a funnel but it’s not converting and it’s not producing the results they were hoping for. They will then try to pay for traffic using their funnel and still not get results.
There are several things to understand when using a funnel. You will need to understand targeting and how to warm up cold traffic, how to set up analytics to know whether your funnel is working, how to write copy, and then test different types of ad campaigns. This is a very complex strategy for getting leads for a coaching and consulting business, but when done right, can quickly scale your business.
I highly recommend having a solid foundation and the infrastructure built out before embarking on the journey of paid traffic for lead generation. Once you can understand the intricacies of building a high-converting funnel, I highly recommend paid traffic as a strategy to scale your business. Even if you add paid traffic to attract high-paying clients, I still recommend continuing with your free and organic traffic strategy. This is a long-term plan to build trust with your audience and will continue to pay dividends over the years and position you as the expert on your path to becoming a thought leader.
Using Other People’s Traffic for Lead Generation
The final traffic strategy that can be used to generate high-quality leads for your coaching or consulting business is called other people’s traffic or OPT for short. Other people’s traffic can be a hybrid between free traffic and paid traffic because sometimes the opportunities are earned and sometimes they are paid.
Free traffic is when you are creating content for your own platform such as on your LinkedIn profile or your Facebook profile. Paid traffic is done using your business profile. Other people’s traffic means you are finding ways to get in front of other people’s audience. An example of using other people’s traffic sources, would be getting booked on a podcast and sharing your message with the podcaster’s audience to attract leads for your own coaching or consulting business.
Another example of OPT is publishing articles. You can write articles for several different platforms whether it’s Forbes, Entrepreneur, Thrive, or the many other platforms out there. You are putting your message out there on that platform with the goal of using their traffic to bring new leads into your own business. There are tons of free opportunities to tap into. Many podcasters are happy to have you on as a guest because they’re looking for compelling experts to share wisdom with their listeners. There are also paid opportunities as well with high-ranking podcasts. The same goes for articles; there are platforms where you can contribute for free and also where you can get paid for your expertise.
There are many ways and many options to tap into other people’s traffic to generate high-quality leads for your own coaching or consulting business.
All three of these traffic sources work to generate leads and when you learn how to exercise one, two, or all three of these, you will notice how quickly you attract high-quality leads into your business.
Let me know in the comments which of these types of traffic you have used in your business to generate leads. If you are ready to learn the specifics on using any or all of these traffic sources to quickly scale your coaching or consulting business, please apply to book a call with me so we can discuss how you can grow your business to high six or even seven figures.
