by: David Wood

Do you ever worry about not being able to get clients? Well -- how do the successful coaches with thriving businesses do it?

The fastest way to accelerate is to model what works for successful people!

For many months now I have been working on an e-book with interviews from ten hugely successful coaches with successful businesses. A major questions focus was: "How did you get so many clients?"

One of our coaches, Leza Danly, has coached hundreds of people over the past nine years. When we asked Leza how she was able to get a full practice of 20 clients in less than six months, she gave us her success formula. Here is an excerpt from her interview...

EXCERPT INTERVIEW WITH LEZA DANLY, MCC

Doing the inner work

...(You need to) do your personal inner work. Know what you want to create (the kind of coaching practice, the size, etc.) and more importantly WHY you want to create it. Invest the time to explore your motivation deeply.

Because if your motivation is to prove you are good enough, or to run away from failure, or to get people to love and approve of you, or to exploit people, or any of many negative motivations, it won't work. Often these motivations are deeply buried and we don't realize they are at play.

When you find the joy of service and align yourself with a motivation to contribute, things will turn around. Once you feel confident that your motivation is clean, you need to confront your willingness to give yourself this dream career.

This may sound like a no-brainer, but for most people it's the biggest challenge. They limp along at a handful of clients, because they honestly feel deep down that to be paid really well for inspiring conversations and having lots of free time is too good to be true. They aren't willing to receive it.

Getting Clients: Magic

I am not joking when I say magic was my primary enrollment method. In fact, it was really important to me that I create my practice magically, meaning that I visualized it, I programmed for it, I spent time regularly in meditation imagining my full practice and seeing myself happily coaching a full practice.

I want to be clear I am not talking about a child's magic that is about wishful thinking and looking the other way. I'm talking about the true, adult magic of consciously creating reality.

Scheduling clients before getting clients

I made a schedule of where my client appointments were going to be and I absolutely allowed myself to desire it, imagine and expect it to happen. Then I would delight as the phone rang and people called and I would set up sample sessions.

Getting excited

I got so excited about the opportunities for growth for the people who called. I think I held an authentic space of possibility in such a way that they could more clearly see who they were becoming. Then I imagined people saying yes to coaching, and they did.

Sample sessions

...Once you've done the introspection, give lots and lots of sample sessions. You never enroll clients from talking about coaching, only from boldly giving yourself to the client in a sample session. Let yourself love. Let yourself care. They will either want it or they won't. Don't obsess on the ones who don't. Just keep giving.

Referrals

Once I started getting clients, then they referred other people. Also, even though I don't recommend coaching friends and family, I did give them sample sessions so they would know more first-hand what I was doing and they were more likely to refer people.

By David Wood and Geoff Grist

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David Wood is a Certified Life Coach. He helps coaches, consultants, speakers and trainers to build their businesses via his popular eBook http://10SuperCoaches.com and his audio eBook at http://www.FirstFiftyClients.com. Get his new Free Download '50 Power Questions' and popular monthly eZine for clients at coaches (now over 15,000 subscribers) at: http://www.solutionbox.com/freedownload.htm

Web site: www.life-coaching-resource.com

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