I frequently visit many business coach and business consultant websites as part of my research before having a Business Growth Strategy Call with them. I am often staggered that they do not include the one marketing element which is critical to making their website produce new clients for them. If I were a prospect and stumbled across their website because some of their marketing worked, in most cases, because this vital element is missing, I would hit the back button without taking any action. This is such a costly marketing mistake to make that I am on a mission to ensure that all business coaches and consultants correct this error on their website.
So, the question is, “Which Marketing Element Is Missing From Their Websites?”
The answer is simple: It depends.
It depends on whether your service fits into my Marketing DNA Nurture framework or my Marketing DNA Now framework.
I will explore both in this article so that you know precisely what you need to do depending on the service that you offer.
First, a very little about me.
My name is Nick Jervis. From 1991 to 2003 I was a solicitor. However, I soon discovered that I far more enjoyed marketing legal services than I did being a solicitor. I also discovered I was good at it. Therefore, in 2003 I launched my marketing consultancy to work with the owners of service based businesses. From Mortgage Brokers to Business Mentors, Financial Advisers to Business Consultants, I work with people who are keen to grow their business by getting clients come to them (rather than them having to chase after clients). I call this easy life marketing. What I am talking about in this article very much fits into this category.
Now that you know that, let’s look at my two service categories so that you know where you belong and then the marketing that you need to do on your website to achieve success.
1. Marketing DNA Now Businesses
Some service business owners are lucky.
They provide a service which someone needs one day, heads online or to the High Street and asks them to help them. These are the lucky Marketing DNA Now guys. They include people like property solicitors (you are moving house, you need a solicitor, you contact one), accountants at tax return time, chiropractors or other healthcare providers (I am in pain and I need help right now).
If you provide these services, all that your website needs to do on every single page is to provide your email address, your telephone number and a live chat service which is hosted 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for you (not by you). If you need an introduction to a company like this just ask me.
2. Marketing DNA Nurture Businesses: What Business Coaches & Consultants Must Offer On Their Website
Now we move onto the part that may be more interesting to you. If you are a business coach, consultant or mentor and currently only offer your prospects the ability to contact you through the methods I mention above, namely telephone, email and live chat, then you are missing the majority of opportunities to win new clients from your website.
Why?
Well, let’s think about this a little more by talking about the service that I offer – marketing or business growth consultancy. If a business owner wakes up one morning thinking “I need more clients” is he or she going to immediately find a marketing consultant, call them and pay them money to help them grow their business?
I can tell you from having been in business since 2003 that no, this isn’t the way that life works for consultants or coaches.
Instead, what happens is that they say “I need some more clients, what should I do?” and then they head off to Google to do some research and to gather some ideas. They are in the ‘research mode’, not buy mode, so it means that you absolutely MUST offer something of value that answers the questions that they have in exchange for their email address so that you can keep in touch with them until they are ready to use your services.
Failure to offer this item of value if you are a business coach, consultant or mentor, meaning you very much offer a Marketing DNA Nurture service, and you let most of the work that would come to you slip through your fingers and head to your competitors.
I have already covered why this is vital if you are a consultant, so let’s look at it from the angle of business mentors and business coaches now:
- You are a business mentor. Someone starts looking for mentors. Most websites that they come across offer nothing but instant contact details. One website offers a free download of 6 Business Success Stories that this business mentor has achieved with his or her clients. The prospect downloads the Case Study booklet and is automatically added to the Business Mentor’s email list. They now hear from this mentor every week until they finally decide that the mentor has well and truly proved his expertise and that mentor is now in a race of one to win their business.
- You are a business coach. You specialise in accountability; making a business owner do what they know they should be doing to make their business more successful, but which they keep putting off. You offer a free guide from your website “The 10 tools every business owner should use to ensure they take the action needed to grow their business.” The guide is downloaded and again you keep in touch with everyone who downloads the guide until they decide it is time to work with you.
Business coaches, business consultants and business mentors will never achieve the success that they desire and deserve unless and until they offer free downloads of value from their website in exchange for their prospects’ email addresses.
To see how to do this in detail, including how to automate the entire process using email marketing software, ideas for your free downloads and how to write emails that sell your services the easy way, simply click the button below to download my guide:
Notice that I am practising what I preach here. If I did not have an email marketing database, grown solely by people downloading valuable content from my website, I would not have a successful consultancy business.
