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Why do some coaches and consultants struggle while others make millions? It starts with knowing how to market yourself as a high end coach or consultant. Then it comes down to your ability to influence others to buy from you. Do you want to position your brand as a high end expert and become the number one in your niche so that you can attract high-paying clients? This blog is a MUST READ for you. Here you’ll learn about the importance of Brand Positioning as a Coach or Consultant.

Why Brand Positioning Strategy Is Important For Coaches And Consultants?

Many coaches and consultants start their businesses with the best of intentions. The entrepreneurial lifestyle seems exciting with promises of making an impact and incredible financial and time freedom. For many people who are exiting the corporate grind, entrepreneurship seems like a perfect dream. However, the reality is often much different.

Working 60+hour weeks, creating dozens of offers, building funnels, constantly launching, putting out tons of content a day, cold pitching, etc – all to generate LESS than you make at your corporate job. 

Sound familiar? 

You also probably have a big heart and are driven by more than the financial reward. But you have bills to pay and this isn’t what you were envisioning.

Or perhaps, you’ve been coaching or consulting for years but your success has become stagnant. You’ve exhausted yourself with different marketing tools and tricks. Maybe you have written a “best selling” book, have a podcast, funnels, and more. You make decent money, but you know you could do well but you are maxed out time-wise. You can no longer “do more to make more.” 

It is important to come up with a perfect brand positioning strategy to grow your influence and market yourself as an expert coach or a consultant in your niche.

There is a HUGE opportunity within the coaching and consulting world to make a ton of money. These are multi-billion dollar industries which are growing each year. This article offers you insight on what is holding you back and how to grow your brand influence to scale your impact and ultimately, your income.

How To Be #1 In Coaching & Consulting Brand & Create Influence?

The big question I’m often approached with is, “Why do some coaches and consultants struggle with landing the high paying clients while others make millions?”

I could share the latest marketing trick – another funnel, a chatbot or hopping on a trendy new social platform, but the answer is much simpler.

 In order to compete in this crowded marketplace and ultimately make millions, you have to influence others to buy from you”. 

You have to Sell to serve, that’s the bottom line. Of course, you need to deliver and get your clients massive results but in order to do that, you must first grab their attention.

A “lack of leads” is the number one complaint from struggling coaches and consultants.

Any competent strategist will tell you that the problem often goes much deeper. This is why clients come to me after dropping tens of thousands on ads and “lead generation services”. They were promised the world with little to no return.

A “lack of leads” is a symptom of a much bigger problem in your brand positioning framework.

You don’t have the influence necessary to scale your impact and income. 

Read along as I break down the 4 levels of the Ladder of Influence to show you exactly how to become #1 in your niche and increase your brand positioning as the go to consultant or coach.

1: The Trap of the Generalist 

Starting at the very bottom of the ladder is the generalist. These are “Jack or Jill of all trades but a master of none”. Almost everyone starts here. When you first started to grow your business, you were still actively trying to find the best way.

You tried different markets, served different types of clients, changed your brand strategy and tried different pricing models. You may have been billing hourly then selling packages for your coaching or consulting business. You may have creat spin-offs of different programs/courses. You tried everything with one goal in mind, to discover what works and generates money.

You spend days trying to get people to pay attention to you with the hopes that one day, someone will buy from you. Here is a dose of reality, no one even knows your name, but not for long.

Most people in this category are following celebrities and expert gurus because they are trying to mimic the success in their own business and marketing framework. Does it work? No, because the giants of the coaching and consulting industry have big teams, complex systems built out already, and big budgets to spend for ads to solidify their brand positioning. 

They have a dozen successful programs and the manpower to invest time, energy, and plenty of financial resources in creating a multi-million dollar launch to scale their business. You as a new coach or consultant just cannot compete with them.

Generalists rarely break the six-figure mark and instead, have been spending their time holding on and just one failure away from burnout. You are ready to throw in the proverbial towel. Staying here is a trap and trying to compete with the gurus at a generalist level is impossible.

When you try to be EVERYTHING for everyone, you will end up being NOTHING for your dream clients.

If you really want to make money, you have to influence more people to buy from you. This starts with strong brand positioning. 

If you may want to charge higher prices but struggle to get people to pay you a few hundred dollars per hour or even to buy $1500 to $5000 packages, how are you going to reach your income goal?

You call yourself a life coach, business consultant, mindset coach, leadership coach, author, and more. So let me ask you this, if you were going to hand over a lot of money to another coach or consultant to solve a big, urgent problem for you, which would you choose?

1. Someone who claims to be an expert at a half dozen things or…

2. Someone who specializes in the EXACT thing you need help with? 

I teach 4 common mistakes that weaken your brand positioning online, and having too many things you claim to be is one of them. The key to making more money and growing your impact lies in specialization.

Take my client John, for example, a Leadership and Executive Coach. He followed our business scaling system which quickly moved him into specialization and started selling his coaching services for $25K.

Or my client Judy, a Business Strategist with a successful background as a corporate attorney, real estate agent, and entrepreneur. We quickly moved her into specialization. She now confidently sold a $20K group program and generated six figures within just two weeks of launching. 

2: Stagnant at Specialization.

Next up in the Ladder of Influence is “Specialization”.

When you specialize in your coaching and consulting business, you can begin the process of association. Someone thinks of a problem, your name comes up as the top option for solving that problem. You aren’t viewed as the go-to expert just yet but you are high up in the list.

Many coaches and consultants at this level, invest in big-ticket certification programs, thinking this will help them “crack the code” to success.

It doesn’t. In fact, certifications are largely a huge waste of time and money. They can actually hold you back from jumping to the next level of influence as you scale your business! More on that later.

Specialists jump into the next category of income, making anywhere from $100K to $350K. This creates another level of satisfaction for the business owner, who is realizing a more significant return on their efforts.

And while you may be making multiple six figures, you are only able to do so by VOLUME. You need a lot of clients and/or hours invested to hit your income goals. You still have too many offers, are customizing work and proposals, and exhausted from working way too much as a coach or consultant.

You are also maxed out time-wise. As the business owner, you are the bottleneck. You can no longer “do more to make more”, without totally burning out.

My client Michele, a business coach specializing in the interior design industry, was bouncing around $250K to $300K for 3 years before she joined. We moved her from specialist to expert quickly. The result? She 4x-ed her business crossing the 7-figure mark in just a year.

And, she did this right when COVID hit and the interior design industry was shut down as shipping supplies were cut off and no one was doing business in peoples’ homes. Her business could have taken a massive hit, instead, she scaled.

Pretty incredible, right? Not only did she hit the 7 figures but we helped her repeat that again just 9 months later. If you want to read the exact steps we took to move her to 7 figures, be sure to download her 20-page case study. 

While specialization is a much better place to be, the real money and impact success comes when you break into the next level.

3: Scaling at Expert Brand Positioning

Many coaches or consultants dream of being seen, respected, and sought after as true experts. However, most aren’t sure how to get there. The answer does not lie in being on a dozen different social platforms or simply putting out a ton of content.

Attaining expert-level influence means your name is synonymous with the very problem you solve with the market you serve. You need to shift from the hunter to the hunted, where your ideal clients seek you. This is the ultimate brand positioning.

The expert category of influence means you move into $350K to multiple 7 figures in income. It’s the next level of freedom and quality of life that coaches and consultants dream of.

There are 5 systems you must put in place to reach the Expert Level of Influence and truly scale your business

I teach this in my “Expert Accelerator™”, a program that helps scale your business to multiple six or even seven figure income .

1: The first system is Offer – Impact System.

This is the foundation of everything you do- who you serve, how you get your clients’ results, your packages, pricing, and the why behind what you do as a coach or consultants.

Every specialist who comes to me needs to restructure or at least upgrade the foundation of what they do. This could mean:

• Significantly raising your prices – typically 4x or more from original pricing. 
• Creating a next-level system/method for how you get your client’s results – we help you truly codify your genius which is absolutely necessary to 4x your prices. 
• Going after a completely different industry/market. If your current people can’t afford to pay you more, find others who will with our method.

Remember how I mentioned that certifications can hold you back? When you become a “Certified X Coach” you do not build Expert Authority. In fact, you will end up competing in a sea of sameness amongst thousands of other same certified X coaches.

To build an Expert coaching or consulting business, you must codify your OWN system that gets your clients’ results. We work deeply with our clients to codify their system and it empowers them to step into selling $25K to $100K+ programs. 

Cynthia, an Executive Coach who joined when she was stuck in the low six figures, relying on volume and hustling all year long to hit her numbers. She joined and sold an executive coaching package for $126K!! She went from working all year to make six figures, to making it in just ONE deal. This is the power of our Offer [Impact] System.

Or Chuck, a healthcare consultant who had never pulled all of his genius into one next-level system. We helped him map out his new pathway and build his Cadillac programs. The result? He turned around and started selling $120k and $180k packages.

2: The second system is Marketing – Influence System.

This article is all about brand positioning strategy that will help you to become #1 in your niche, and marketing is a huge part of this process. There are 3 specific areas you must master. 

The first is audience creation. You don’t need a million followers to create a multi-7-figure business. But you do need the right people in your audience to buy from you. You also need to approach them in the right way and to do this you need to create a high amount of RELEVANCY.

We live in a highly distracted world where the demands are high and attention is the new currency. However, you can achieve this through the next two goals of this system, mastering your messaging and attaining expert brand positioning in your niche. Many coaches and consultants fail not because what they offer isn’t valuable but they fail to effectively communicate their VALUE to their audience. 

Mastering your messaging allows you to quickly cut through the noise online and outshine your competition. It means clients “slow their scroll,” respond to your message and lean into what you have to say all because you are literally speaking to their deepest pains and desires. Mastering the language of your brand positioning is essential to magnetize clients to you.

Finally is when you achieve expert positioning. Many coaches and consultants struggling to generate significant and consistent revenue have weak positioning. 

This is usually because they are making one or more of four common mistakes that harm their positioning:

• Having too many or low end offers in their business
• Having too many businesses
• Weak/cheap branding positioning
• Messaging that attracts the wrong people (afraid/broke/struggling)

Expert positioning means you believe who you are and the value you bring to your clients’ lives is reflected in all that you do.

You are truly seen as an expert. This requires the right brand positioning strategy to quickly shift perception online and skyrocket your business leads.

My client Leo is a spiritual teacher and life coach for conscious executives. Before joining Expert Accelerator™, he was stuck in the generalist category making around $90K per year. His goal was to not only grow his income but to do so while working less so he could raise his young daughter.

The result? He scaled his business to be consistent $60K months in under a year working part-time. I love sharing his story because despite the fact that Leo is not in the “wealth creation business” (i.e. business coaching) and his niche is very specific, he more than 5x his income by implementing our process.

Or James, a Business Coach fresh out of corporate. He wrote a “best selling book”, launched a course that flopped, and struggled to sell $3,000 packages. We wiped his entire strategy clean, codified his genius and positioned him to go after next-level clients. The result?

He sold a $30K package in just 2 weeks and a $62K package just 4 weeks later. He then used our system to grow his business to half a million in less than a year. As you can see, six-figure leaps of business growth are possible when you put these systems in place.

3: The third system is Sales – Money System.

Remember, you have to sell to serve, so in order to move up the Ladder of Influence into Expert Level status, you need to create next-level offers and your brand marketing and to be successful at selling them.

Coaches and consultants who don’t have this dialed in, generate quality business leads but struggle to translate those into high-value clients. Having Expert Level Influence means being able to translate authority into your sales conversation.

Your leads are “primed” before they even get on a call with you. These potential clients are eager and ready to buy. You are able to demonstrate your expertise and effectively present what you bring to the table and your solution. Your pitch goes so well that even if the investment to work with you has a $50K price tag, it’s a “HECK YES” from your business prospect.

An Expert Level Sales [Money] system means having strong pre-qualification measures in place so that you only get on the phone with people who are perfect for your program. No more wasting time with lookie-loos or those wanting free advice with zero intention of buying.

Your time is protected and you easily enroll the very best clients into your programs.

My client Trea, a world-renowned Dating Coach & Matchmaker came to me as she struggled to own her value and despite her amazing track record with clients, she still had a bit of imposter syndrome. We transformed her sales strategy and she moved confidently into selling $25K to $65K programs and generated $140K in the month of July, her typical “slow season!”

4: Next is Systems and Team – Freedom System.

In order to scale up, the business owner has to be removed as the bottleneck otherwise the business will stay stagnant in the low six figures. 

Implementing your Freedom System means putting the right systems in place and in the right order of strategy. It means streamlining everything that you do so that you can reclaim your time freedom.

This can take shape in simplifying your entire backend by putting automation in place and creating the systems necessary to support your Offer, Marketing, and Sales Systems.

It enables you to ensure you have a pipeline full of quality leads as you continue to grow your brand positioning and influence. You are also building your email list, generating consistent high ticket sales, leveraging opportunities to scale your influence, and more.

Through the Freedom System you are building your team by putting the “right butts in the right seats” to free up your time and focus on what you do best, driving vision and serving clients. This system allows you to move from a “solopreneur” wearing all the hats to a true CEO.

This system helps you to know exactly who to hire, when to hire, and what to have them do to free up your time as a coach or consultant. Because this is essential to scaling. This is the most complex and time-consuming part of what we teach but it is the one that allows you to make massive leaps in revenue and ultimately creates the most freedom for you as the business owner.

This is why we do not teach just the first three systems. All five are necessary to scale to 7 figures and beyond.

5: The final system is Delivery – Scale System.

Most advertisements in your newsfeed focus on more and more client acquisition. Getting more clients is great but not at the expense of getting results for your existing clients. This is why many coaching businesses break when they hit the 7 figures income.

You can scale sustainably and grow your income but this system helps you to do that while staying in integrity with your promise. You get clients and find your perfect flow when it comes to lead generation while continuing to fulfill for your existing clients.

Your clients are looking for a big transformation. To reach and maintain your Expert Level of Influence, you must get results for your clients.

They invest significantly in you to help them get the results they desire. It’s a win-win for both and it gives you incredible case studies to fuel your Expert Influence strategy.

The old adage is true, “The more people you help, the more will want your help” and having an extraordinary delivery experience is essential to the long-term growth of your brand influence and business.

These 5 systems combined are what make up the Expert Accelerator™ method and exactly what we help our clients do to scale their businesses to the high 6 and 7 figures. If you’d like to learn more about applying for a call, click here.

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4. Achieving Thought Leadership Level with Brand Positioning As A Coach & Consultant 

Few coaches and consultants will make it to the thought leadership level of influence. Thought leaders are in a category of their own and are celebrities in their industries. 

It is a completely different model geared toward those who desire to have an 8 figure business. It is not for the faint of heart but rather for those who are determined to go all in and through all the growing pains of reaching this level of success.

What’s the one thing all thought leaders have in common?

They mastered brand positioning to become #1 in their niche. They made their way strategically up the Ladder of Influence, moving from Generalist to Specialist to an Expert to finally reaching a Thought Leader. No one arrived there overnight, and no one did it alone.

This wraps up this blog post. If you enjoyed it, be sure to drop a comment below. I would love to hear from you and be sure to check out our video on this exact topic above.