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A Primer for Coaches, Consultants, and Healers Who Don’t Have a Following or Email List
Starting a business can feel overwhelming, especially when you don’t (yet) have a large audience, social media following, or an email list. But here’s the good news: you don’t need a large audience to find clients, especially when you’re offering high touch one-on-one services.
Whether you’re a coach, healer, or service-based business owner, you can find clients even if you don’t yet have ANY audience whatsoever. If you think about it, EVERY business has had to start from scratch at one point. And people don’t go from 0 to 10k followers immediately.
The key to booking clients without an audience is by using tried and true business strategies that are focused on finding and converting warmer leads into clients. In this post, I’ll share simple strategies to help you build momentum, make meaningful connections, and start booking clients—no big audience required.
Why Focus on Warm Leads and Referrals to Find Clients
First off, it’s important to understand the definition of “warm leads.” Warm leads are potential customers who have already shown interest in your service or business.
Unlike cold leads (who don’t yet know you), warm leads are people who are familiar with your business, have engaged with your content or marketing in some way, and/or have expressed a need for what you’re offering.
In some cases, warm leads may also be friends of friends, referrals, and people in your extended network. They may not know of your business YET, but they may know of you or of someone who can vouch for you.
Examples of warm leads:
- Your network or extended network — Friends of friends, acquaintances of colleagues, or “loose” connections that you know through your community, school, workplace, etc.
- Past clients or practice clients – People who have worked with you in the past or showed interest in the past but haven’t converted yet
- People in your coaching certification program or shared group — Folks who know you and share a common interest or group
- Referrals from existing or past clients – The best clients refer the best clients
- Social media followers – Those who like, comment, or share your posts, even if it’s not necessarily on your business account
Whether they have some level of awareness and connection to your coaching services or to you as a human, these folks are “warmer” leads than say, a complete stranger on social media.
3 Ways to Find Clients Without a Large Audience
When you’re offering one-on-one coaching packages, you don’t need a large audience. You don’t need 10k followers to have 10 clients. In fact, plenty of businesses operate just fine without large social media followings!
You just need a few right fit clients who want what you have to offer.
For that reason, when you don’t have an audience, you don’t need to cast a wide net or focus all your time and energy on building a big platform. Instead, you want to focus on finding the right folks — who may already be in right in your proverbial business backyard.
Here are 3 tactics to find and convert your warm leads:
1. Leverage Your Personal Network
For most coaches and healers, their first clients come from inside their network. Yet so often, coaches and healers don’t leverage their network!
Look, I get it, you don’t want to coach your friends and family. (And you shouldn’t as it can bring up some ethical issues!)
However, by not sharing about your business with your friends, family, past colleagues, and personal connections, you’re missing out on what could be excellent referrals from people who already know, like, and trust you.
So reach out to people you already know. Tell them about your business, who you serve, and that you’re open to clients. Your personal network can be the most powerful resource for finding your first clients or getting clients faster.
Action step: Write a personal email to each person in your contacts list. (Yes, even those you haven’t spoken with in a while!) Tell them who you serve, that you’re open to taking new clients, and ask them if they know of anyone who can benefit from your services.
Bonus Tip: Share a post on your personal Facebook profile or your LinkedIn with the same info. Don’t forget to add a call-to-action to contact you.
Heads up! If you get tripped up on describing who you are, what you do, and the value you offer, clarify your core message first.
2. Network with Local or Online Groups and Communities
One of the quickest ways to connect with potential clients is by attending local networking events (in your area) or joining online communities (in your niche).
Whether it’s a local meetup, a chamber of commerce gathering, or an online Facebook group, these spaces are full of people who may need your services—or know someone who does.
When attending events or participating in online groups, the key is to provide value before pitching your services. You can do this by asking thoughtful questions, offering coaching or guidance, and sharing helpful content (like your blog posts, freebies, tips, and more).
In fact, don’t even think about pitching at first. Every interaction is an opportunity to practice talking about what you do, learn about the needs of potential clients, and build your credibility in your field.
If you find a group is not a great fit for you, you can move on and find another. Over time, you’ll become more confident in sharing about yourself and naturally start attracting clients through the authentic connections you’ve built.
Action step: Start by identifying groups locally and online (Facebook and Meetup are great places) to join and get exposure to potential clients and/or referrals. Join various groups until you’ve found a good fit. Be proactive. Introduce yourself and respond to posts.
Bonus tip: Sign up for specific events that you can attend (like in person or online events) and be ready with your elevator pitch. Make it a point to introduce yourself to at least 3-5 people with every event you attend.
3. Collaborate with Complementary Businesses and Borrow their Audiences
The next best way to find clients outside of your network is to borrow other people’s audiences. What does that mean? It means partnering with other people in your niche who serve the same audience, but in a different way.
For example, if you’re a health coach, you might partner with a personal trainer or nutritionist. If you’re a relationship coach, you might partner with a couples therapist or a marriage counselor. If you’re a career coach, you might partner with a resume writer or recruiter.
Try to connect with prominent folks with a large(r) audience. Reach out and make connections. Set up coffee chats. Think about how you can add value to their audience. Share some ideas where you can do exactly that. Remember the rule of partnership: There should be something in it for BOTH of you!
Action step: Consider the more known people in your niche, as well as those you already follow on social media or are connected to in some way. Start making informal connections with a DM and inviting them for a coffee chat. Be willing to explore partnership opportunities that support both of your businesses.
Bonus tip: Don’t just show up for a call and say you want to partner. Offer up some thoughts or ideas to get the conversation going. You could do a joint workshop, a joint Instagram live, a podcast interview, a guest blog post, a freebie swap … the options are endless!
3 Things Not to Waste Time on When You Need to Find Clients Now
When you need clients now (or like yesterday), there are some marketing strategies that, while effective in the long run, may not be the best use of your time and energy right now.
1. Building a Large Social Media Following
While social media can be a powerful tool, focusing on growing a large following is time-consuming, energy-draining, and often doesn’t lead to immediate client conversions, especially when you’re starting from scratch. When you don’t have an audience, building that audience takes time. (And never buy followers, btw!)
Instead, if you choose to use social media for your coaching business, use it strategically to connect directly with potential clients through comments or DMs. When you get a new follower, DM them and to introduce yourself and learn more about them. Engage with each and every comment you get. Prioritize direct engagement and conversations over gaining follower count.
Remember, you don’t need a huge following to book clients! And you don’t need to spend all your time on social media. Make it a plan to post once or twice a week on one or two platforms.
2. Creating a Long-Term, Labor Intensive Content Strategy
Blogging, podcasting, or creating a content-rich YouTube channel are excellent strategies for long-term growth, but they take time to create a content strategy, build an audience from scratch, and start attracting and eventually converting your audience.
Building a content platform is a great long-term strategy when you have time to dive in. If you need to find clients now — and you have zero audience — you’re better suited to focusing on direct outreach, networking, and referrals that can bring in clients more quickly.
If and when you want to get started with content, take the time to create a content strategy that maps back to your business goals (i.e., If your goal is to attract clients for your signature package on health coaching, create one piece of content that’s tailored to that audience.)
3. Investing in Paid Advertising
Running ads, whether on Facebook, Instagram, or Google, can be effective but requires time, testing, and budget to see a return on investment. When you’re new or in need of clients, you might not have those luxuries!
Instead, at this stage, organic marketing strategies like networking and referrals will likely yield faster results without the financial risk and time burden of trying and testing ads.
In many cases, ads are great at attracting cold leads to your business and introducing them to your work. As these leads are colder, they take longer to nurture and convert to paying clients. So save ads for when you’re making money and you have more time to focus on nurturing.
Ready to find clients without a large audience?
If you need to find clients NOW without a large audience, the key is getting out there, getting visible, and making personal connections. In the end, business is still about relationships. The more you can learn to establish real, authentic connections with people — who may either refer you to potential clients or be potential clients themselves, the faster you can grow your business.
As a holistic business coach, I help my clients create packages, clarify their messaging, and find organic marketing strategies to reach their ideal audience. Curious about working together? Your first step is to submit an application here.
