33 - "Top of funnel" - my mega list of where clients come from!
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the business of executive coaching. I'm Ellie Scarf, an ex lawyer turned executive coach. Over the last 17 years, I've coached in house, I've been an associate coach, and I've run executive coaching businesses with teams of coaches around the world. My clients have ranged from global brand names to boutiques, startups, and more.
and organizations doing good in the world. I now run the Impact Coach Collective, a community of executive coaches who want to level up their business skills and take action in a community of like minded peers. I'm a traveler, a reader, a mum, wife and dog parent, and I know firsthand that our stories have a huge impact on our businesses.
The executive coaching business is tough. And I've learnt all the lessons through plenty of mistakes, and also with some great mentors. This podcast is all about growing a thriving executive coaching business. [00:01:00] You can build a coaching business that is profitable, sustainable, and that supports your personal goals, whatever they are.
I'll be sharing tips and ideas translated for your context, as well as stories from the field with brilliant coaches and mentors. If you want to level up your executive coaching business skills, Then this is the place for you.
Hello, and welcome to this week's episode. So before I dive in, I have a request. If you enjoy the podcast, if you get a lot out of it, would you write a review for me? A review on Apple or on your preferred podcast player makes a huge difference in terms of how many people learn about the podcast. And honestly, it also gives me some reassurance that I'm adding value and that this is helpful.
So if you could take 20 seconds to write a review, I would be extremely grateful. Thank you in advance. [00:02:00] So this episode feels quite fun for me. I don't know why I just, I really, I really like talking about this topic. But before I go into the details of my mega list of places that clients come from, so you can hear I'm enjoying this.
I want to share two ideas that underpin it. The first idea is that we need to think of our sales process as a funnel. Now you have probably heard this idea before, but maybe you haven't really sat down to think about what is coming in at the top of your funnel. So let's just, let me just share the idea of the funnel generally.
So when we have when we think of our sales process, basically we have a funnel and the very first place that is relevant is you guessed it, the top of the funnel. So the top of the funnel is a place where all the people, all the companies that could eventually become your clients, it's where they enter into your world.
So it's people who go from not knowing you, not having heard [00:03:00] of you to knowing of you and engaging with you in some way. And they come from. A lot of different places. And that is what we are talking about today, but in terms of the funnel, like from those people who come into the top of our funnel, a percentage of them will respond to, to how we want to connect with them.
A percentage of those people will then progress to perhaps having a meeting with us after some correspondence, a percentage of those people will have like a live opportunity and will want a proposal from us. Some of those people will accept some of those people will actually engage us. And some of those people will pay.
So not everyone who accepts will actually end up being a client. Those people who accept, engage and pay, those are the clients that then pop out the bottom of your sales funnel. So funnel, top of funnel, lots in a gradual process of filtering out. And we end up with a group [00:04:00] of brilliant clients at the bottom of the funnel.
The second important idea before we dive into the actual places leads come from is that given the nature of a funnel volume in the top is actually important. So the number of prospects or, or contacts who come in at the top of your funnel is directly proportionate in a funnel structure to the number of clients that come out the bottom of your funnel.
So while being strategic Matters. And we do need to be very strategic and make sure where, you know, channeling our energy effectively. It's also important that we are just doing enough of everything, right? Enough outreach, enough content, enough word of mouth, enough networking, all of it, we need to do enough because, you know, while there are a lot of variables that you can influence, it is still largely.[00:05:00]
Or to some degree, a numbers game. And so if you think you can reach out to five people and clients will, will come out the bottom of your funnel, that is probably unrealistic. And is not like the sort of numbers that I would expect you to see. You're going to need to Be doing a bit more outreach. And of course it depends.
So like an input into the top of your funnel, they're not all created even right. So someone that you connect with randomly on LinkedIn, like cold outreach is a very different kettle of fish to someone has, who has been referred to you from your existing client and as a person who has a specific need that you can help.
That is obviously much more likely to convert into a client, but generally, if we look at it in terms of broad strokes, we need to have enough people coming in at the top of the funnel in order to in order to get the number of clients we want at the bottom. So the purpose of today is [00:06:00] to share. My mega list of all the sorts of places you should be thinking about bringing people into your world.
Now, I'm not going to go into how you should connect with those people. That is hugely complex. And is a big part of what we do inside the impact coach collective, but hopefully these ideas in this list will help you to craft a set of priority areas. That you can focus on as you grow your top of funnel channels.
So the first category is warm leads. Now what is warm leads? Warm leads is in itself a really big group. It's like a cluster of people, but it's a theme. And it is definitely where I recommend that coaches start their outreach. So our warm leads can be really hot, right? So let's imagine you've left your job, your job in a corporate company, right?
Your past boss said to you as you were leaving, as soon as you set up, give me a buzz, we'll get you in touch with the leader of this team and we really want you to work with them, [00:07:00] right? That is a hot lead. You might also have pretty warm leads of people who are like, Oh yeah, I'd be, you know, really interested in having a chat once you're, once you set up, or we can have barely lukewarm leads.
Right. And think, you know, like a LinkedIn connection who you haven't met, but has, has still connected with you. So he's warm, but is, is pretty lukewarm. Yeah. But all the people who fall into this category have chosen to be a part of your world have chosen to engage in a way that there is a communication channel between you or open to you.
And you know, to some degree they have, they, they are supportive of, of what you do passively or actively. So warm leads can include friends and family, and, you know, don't underestimate this. You must ask your most fervent personal supporters to be your professional cheerleaders and connectors. When you start a business, they will want to help.
And just what you're doing when you ask your friends and family who love you and support you and want you to do well, [00:08:00] what you're doing is you're amplifying your personal network into theirs and they will keep you connected. With relevant people. So don't rule it out. Make sure your friends and family know what you're doing.
Make sure you let them know. Make sure you ask them to help you get connected. They might, they might need some help in their own businesses. Now, I don't know. I don't recommend coaching friends and family. In fact, I, I highly recommend against that. I don't think it's, it's a very good idea in many cases for anyone who has tried to coach a spouse who knows bad idea but their networks will be, will be amazing.
You also can put in this category of warm leads, your past colleagues. And I think this is a really important group, especially close past colleagues. So people who. Have almost been your work friends, right? So these are people that know professional you, they respect you, they [00:09:00] see the value that you bring.
Now this can be a broad category because we can expand it to all past colleagues. But it is very important. And this is one I always suggest people prioritize is reaching out and just reestablishing a connection with these people. And it may be to, you know, engage you themselves, but more likely it is to connect you into organizations that they're in.
And what is fabulous about these networks is it includes going back to people you started your professional career with. Because they most likely have been on a pretty interesting career path, just as you have. And so reconnecting, learning what they've done, finding out what, what is happening in their world is a great way to just, you know, build your footprint a little more broadly.
And of course, you'll talk about what you currently do. It doesn't mean you're going to be doing hard sales. I know I said, I wasn't going to tell you how to do Walmart reach, but you know, you, what you will be doing is just starting a conversation to, to [00:10:00] begin with. And that's because I, and I say that because a lot of people are like, Oh God, I can't think of anything worse than contacting my friends, family, past colleagues, and you know, hitting them up with a hard sell.
And so I want to reassure you that that is not what we're doing. And that, yeah, we would not, that, that is not an effective strategy. So no, no hard selling. This is about rebuilding connections and just, just, you know, building like authentically building relationships really warm leads could also include your past clients whether that's coaching clients or clients in your professional world.
It can include also your, just your general corporate network. So people that you connected with throughout your corporate life. And, and, you know, those ones, I would expect the conversation to, you know, be more transparent and to be more you know, it's kind of more okay, I think to say. This is what I'm doing professionally when this is a professional network.
And then your warm leads can also include sort of, you know, [00:11:00] the, the, the dump of the list of, you know, anyone who is a LinkedIn connection anyone who you've connected with by email, you know, people whose phone numbers you've got. Just sort of that, that broader list of people. Now it doesn't mean you will actively contact all these people.
It is a list that you should consider you know, who you would like to prioritize connecting with. So these people are all prospective clients or links to other prospective clients. The next category is, you know, referrals and word of mouth. And honestly, for many years, this was my main source of business.
And I know that for many coaches that is their primary source of business also. And this is great, but I think it's. Important to just be aware of falling into a bit of a complacency trap or assuming that this is where more and more work will tend to come from because it may or it may [00:12:00] not. And so, you know, don't be complacent.
Don't wait for this to happen, but it should be an important part of your, of your sourcing of, of new clients. So, In this category, I would include, you know, referrals from your friends and your family referrals from your existing clients. And these are absolutely the most powerful, let me tell you being referred to a new client by an existing client with a word of recommendation is the Holy grail.
It also includes referrals from your broader network who know what you do. Now, this usually means that you have people in your network You know, usually on LinkedIn who have been watching what you're doing and reading your posts and often, honestly, they have not responded. They have not liked a single post you've made.
They have not engaged with you in any way, but you have come to their mind when someone that they know. Needed what you have [00:13:00] been talking about, whether it's coaching or facilitation or training. And so this is why your consistent content and posting is really important. And I'm going to talk about that in a moment.
But just referrals from that broad network who know what you do. And so when we talk about visibility, we talk about visibility because people need to know what you do in order for you to be referable. So, you know, if you need a bit of a rocket. To, to think about, Oh God, I don't want to post. I don't want to send emails.
This is why you need to do it. If nothing else, it is so that you can be referable. So another category is the people that come from your organic content itself. Now, what the heck is organic content? You might say, so. Organic content usually means content that you post across your social networks and is not advertising, right?
So it is the posting and the thought leadership that you do on whatever channels you prefer. [00:14:00] So obviously in the executive coaching world, often we're talking about LinkedIn, but it could be it could be Facebook. It could be, Twitter, or I'm supposed to call that X now it could be YouTube, whatever your preferred place.
So how does that bring people into your top of funnel? Well, good question. It can include you know, the people that actively, you know, see your posts through other people engaging or sharing. And that then choose to follow or connect with you or engage with you. And lots of people in my audience say that it is their posting on LinkedIn that, you know, brings the most inquiries and engagement, even if they're not posting on your post, the DMS that you receive as a result.
It could include people who read your blog, right? If you have a blog on your website or who, you know, come across your articles on LinkedIn, it would include, you know, followers of a podcast. If you had a podcast, it is basically people [00:15:00] who are drawn to you because of the subject. Of what you write about and the manner in which you present yourself, right?
So those are people who are drawn to you because of your organic content. Then we have cold outreach. So cold outreach. These are the people that come into your world because you are asking them to come in, right? You are actively reaching out to them and saying, Hey. Hey, come and come and join me over here.
And so some examples of that could include, you know, sending out LinkedIn connection requests to people that you don't know, but that are in your target audience. And I have an episode about how and why you need to do this. So go back to episode 23, if you haven't already listened to it. And cold email is another way that people are doing this.
And that could be. You know, LinkedIn in mails to people who are not your connection, it could be based on researching you know, websites of potential clients that, that you're interested in. [00:16:00] It could even be through buying email lists. Now I haven't done this, but you know, I, I experimenting is, is it our friend?
So, you know, if you want to give it a go, go for it. You would just expect very low conversion rates but it is something you can do. I think that LinkedIn connection requests is probably, you know, the, the most sensible approach for most coaches in, in the cold outreach space. But there is a lot, a lot more that you can do in that area.
A bit of a wild card that can bring people into your world is advertising. So LinkedIn have advertising capability, Facebook and Instagram have advertising capability. That's something I've started experimenting with. You might advertise at a conference, you might advertise in relevant industry publications.
Now look a word on advertising. I would not have considered this realistically a good way for coaches to bring people into their world, but I am changing my views. [00:17:00] It's a work in progress for me. I'm learning more about it and I don't sort of want to say, yes, it works. No, it doesn't. Just yet. So I don't think you should start there.
I think you should make sure you're doing your, all your warm outreach. Much better before you start here, but don't rule it out down the track. So I would love to hear if this is something you are doing successfully as a coach, drop me a note and let me know what you're doing. I'm super curious.
Biggest thing to remember when you go down the advertising path is that it isn't about the ad alone. It is about how you use the ad. To get someone onto say your mailing list and then how you nurtured them to, to make them warmer and warmer connections. Right? So there is a lot of work involved. I want to make sure I flag that, but it is a way that you can bring people into your audience.
Or into your, into your top of funnel. Another category that I really love, and I think is really interesting is tapping into other people's audiences. Now to do [00:18:00] this effectively, you need to think about where your ideal clients are, who else works with them that is not a direct competitor of yours. So some examples might include speaking at conferences, right?
So usually industry conferences rather than coaching conferences. So, you know, that's an opportunity to talk to lots of potential clients at once. Another example of using, connecting with other people's audience might be being a guest on a podcast that speaks to your target audience. And that's particularly relevant if you have a particular industry.
niche that you're interested in, and you might find that there are industry specific podcasts out there. And then, you know, what about, are there other service providers where you serve the same clients and, but not in the same way, and you might have something valuable that, that you could offer them.
So for example could you partner up with a recruiter who wants more [00:19:00] clients, wants to offer their clients more value. And partner with them to offer you know, like a free change management workshop or a free workshop on navigating the first three months of, of a career transition in order to get an introduction to a whole bank of clients that you wouldn't have otherwise had potential clients that you wouldn't have otherwise known.
Or could you write a blog for their website, for example, on that topic? So other people's audiences. Now, another subset of that might be posting on groups on LinkedIn or on Facebook. I think that is good, but only if you do it to genuinely add value, I think, you know, don't go onto groups with a view of trying to sell yourself.
Directly that, that doesn't work. And it is generally perceived pretty negatively, but if you want to join groups where your clients might be, and then answer questions, truly adding value and let people find you from there. I think that can be a good way of approaching it as well. [00:20:00] Related to other people's audience, sort of.
Sort of indirectly related is that you can get people into your into your top of funnel through media. And that could be you know, writing articles or being interviewed for online publications. It could be specifically submitting press releases for your launches. If you have something really interesting that you're doing, or you're, you know, you're offering something that hasn't been done in an industry that you work with.
You know, so press releases is, is an option. And it could also be, I love this idea is listing yourself as a subject matter expert on one of the ask an expert databases where journalists go to, to get sources. So one example of those, it used to be called Harrow and now it's called connectively but you can, you know, there's no restriction on submitting yourself as an expert.
So, you know, you can do that. And then if a journalist wants to write an article. They can reach out and say, I need someone to give me a quote on change management. And then [00:21:00] they would just reference you. You give them the quote, they reference you in the article. So it's quite simple. And then look, an often overlooked source of top of funnel leads is other coaches.
Now. Of course that can include associate work, which comes in all shapes and sizes and can be a top of funnel option. Check out podcast episode 31, if you want to just hear a little bit more about some of the dynamics of associate work and it. But it also, and probably more relevantly, it also includes partnering with other coaches when you might do different types of work and you want to cross refer to each other.
So it might be that they need someone who can deliver parental coaching, right? Or that they might just have too much work. They don't want to set up as an associate. They're happy to just refer work to you. So I guess that's almost more referral, but I think other coaches, you know, this is a good, because sometimes our [00:22:00] networks can become a bit coach heavy rather than client heavy, but you know, I think it's great.
I think, I mean, I think our coach networks are important on so many levels. But I think one of them is that there may be opportunities to partner and work together. So, so that could be an option as well. And then last, but definitely not least we can also bring into, bring people into our world in our top of funnel through our attendance at networking events.
And look, very few people tell me that they like networking events, but they also generally say that they've gotten used to it and they admit that they're helpful and they are good ways of meeting people. So think about networking events in the industry that you're targeting. Not coaching, networking events, right.
Or both, right, but not. Make sure you think about where are your clients when it comes to networking events. Okay. So I want to know what I've missed. Let me know what other weird or [00:23:00] wonderful or normal that I've just forgotten ways you have had clients or potential clients come into your world. You know, I've definitely had colleagues who have you know, met people at the gym who became clients corporate clients, parents at their kid's school.
What is your best story? So. You know, once we have these folks in our world, you then need to identify how much time you're going to invest into growing each of these pathways and what your strategy will be to get them from top of funnel awareness to connecting in a way that is likely to lead to actual work.
So that is the big bit of work you need to do after you start growing the volume of people coming into your top of funnel. Thank you for listening in today. I really hope that was helpful and I hope it's helped you to think a little more broadly about how you might you know, start the process of bringing clients into your world.
As mentioned, I'd be really grateful if you'd leave a review, if you found this episode helpful and I'll be back next [00:24:00] week with more.
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This episode was brought to you by the Impact Coach Collective, where executive coaches grow their businesses in a community of peers with business education, mentoring, deal clinics, and more. If you'd like to contact me or work with me further, all my free resources, courses, and more info on the Impact Coach Collective can be found at elliescarf.com. Have a brilliant week, and I look forward to talking to you again soon.
