Jo Lott discusses powerful strategies for coaches to rapidly expand their audience and client base through exponential growth activities. Instead of relying solely on slow-building tactics like social media, Jo shares four high-impact approaches that can lead to significant growth in a short period of time.

Key Points:

Introduction (0:00-2:00)

• The power of exponential growth vs linear growth for building an audience
• Why social media alone has limits for rapidly growing your coaching business

Exponential Growth Strategy #1: Guest Appearances (2:00-4:00)

• Getting featured on other people's podcasts, videos, blogs, etc. to tap into their existing audience
• How to identify the right hosts/creators who have your ideal clients
• The benefits of borrowed trust and credibility

Exponential Growth Strategy #2: Speaking (4:00-7:00)

• Pitching yourself to speak at conferences, seminars, meetups, etc. attended by your target clients
• An example of how one client landed huge speaking opportunities that resulted in new clients
• Tips for getting accepted as a speaker, even early on

Exponential Growth Strategy #3: Leveraging Existing Audiences (7:00-9:00)

• Working with complementary coaches/influencers to get featured in front of their audiences
• A success story of a client who gained 700 Instagram followers and 48 discovery calls in 24 hours

Exponential Growth Strategy #4: Online Advertising (9:00-11:00)

• Using paid ads on Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube to accelerate your reach
• The need for upfront investment, having the backend set up properly, and a learning curve

Closing Thoughts (11:00-13:00)

• Balancing exponential growth with your own consistent audience building
• The benefit of having accountability and support in implementing these strategies

Useful Links

How to secure more coaching clients' free training

Download the 12 ways to get clients now

Learn about The Business of Coaching programme

Connect with Jo on LinkedIn

Rate and Review the Podcast

If you found this episode of Women in the Coaching Arena helpful, please do rate and review it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

If you’re kind enough to leave a review, please do let Jo know so she can say thank you. You can always reach her at: joanna@joannalottcoaching.com

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Hello and welcome to Women in

the Coaching Arena podcast.

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I'm so glad you are here.

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I'm Jo Lott, a business mentor

and ICF accredited coach

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Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone):

and I help coaches to

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build brilliant businesses.

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I know that when you prepare to enter

the arena, there is fear, self doubt,

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comparison, anxiety, uncertainty.

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You can tend to armor up and

protect yourself from vulnerability.

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In this podcast, I'll be sharing

honest, not hype, practical and

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emotional tools to support you to make

the difference that you are here for.

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Dare greatly.

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You belong in this arena.

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Welcome to the 58 episode of

women in the coaching arena.

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I am so glad you are here.

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Today, I'm going to focus on something

that's been inspired by one of my clients

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who actually inspired my episode 55.

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This is your reminder to keep going.

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And now she is inspiring my episode 58.

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So you will know who you

are., if you are listening.

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If you are a coach looking to rapidly

expand your audience and client

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base, then this episode is for you.

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Today I'm talking about

exponential growth activities.

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This is something I raise in my

program and my group calls a lot.

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Because sometimes we can

spend so long creating

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one social media post.

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When there are some times really

big opportunities for growth.

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And we just need to

stop and look for them.

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So this is your opportunity to consider

exponential growth activities today.

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As coaches with limited time.

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And I think all of us can say that

and we all think we are alone.

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In the fact we have limited time.

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But we all are juggling

so many different things.

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And we all want to grow our

business in a sustainable, easy way.

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But things like social media can only

get you so far unless you are the lucky

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one who goes viral every day of the week.

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And really really hits

the nail on the head.

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But that is the exception

rather than the rule, sadly.

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Yes, always aim to make

your stuff amazing.

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But there are things you can do in

the meantime, rather than just rely on

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social media, which initially is really,

really slow to build that audience.

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Like for example, looking

at my LinkedIn followers.

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For some reason between 8,000

and 9,000 followers, which I know

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may sound a lot, depending on

how far you are in the journey.

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It just felt like for ever

watching those numbers grow.

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Whereas when we think about exponential

growth, It can still start slow.

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But it rapidly compounds and you get

that real good upwards trajectory.

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So I have had this, for example, when I

did a talk to about six or 700 coaches.

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I got a huge load of followers immediately

after that talk, because I asked those

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people to connect with me on LinkedIn.

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So that is an example of an

exponential growth strategy.

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So now you may be asking how can you

find exponential growth channels?

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Let's think about four

powerful strategies today.

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Our fast exponential growth

activity is guest appearances.

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How can you get on other people's

podcasts, videos, blogs, live

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streams, all of the things.

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Really think about who has your

ideal audience and they might offer

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a slightly different service to you.

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So, for example, someone I'm

thinking of inviting on my podcast.

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Is someone called Lucy legal.

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I haven't contacted her yet.

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But she helps coaches with the

legalities, for their business.

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So she has the same ideal client as me.

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But she has a complimentary skillset.

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I would be offering her the exponential

growth activity, because if she came

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on my podcast, then she may get a quick

burst of new followers into her audience.

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The benefit of speaking at someone else's

event is that you gain shared trust.

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So the people who already trust them

will automatically trust you because

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you have borrowed that person's trust.

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And if they are recommending you

then their followers are more

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than likely to trust you as well.

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The entire thing we work on for people

to buy from you is know like, and trust.

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So if we can borrow that from someone

who already has know, like, and trust.

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It's a far quicker process than showing

up online month after month trying to

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build your own know like, and trust.

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Depending on how far established you are

on your journey, you might be thinking.

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Well, that's all right to say so, but no,

one's going to want me on their podcast

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or doing a guest blog for them or doing

a guest expert in their facebook group.

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Let me share with you that

isn't always the case.

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Sometimes they are really keen on

gaining guest experts in that audience.

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If they have a group of clients, like

I have a group, for example, Then

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if it's a priority for that group.

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Then it actually adds

value to their offer.

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So if you pitch it right.

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And really show the value that you are

going to offer to that exact audience

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rather than sending a generic pitch.

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Then you will be likely to be accepted.

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After saying that don't just send one

thing and then sit there and wait, there

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will still be a numbers game involved

because lots of people may be pitching

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to speak to their group or speak on

their podcasts, wherever it may be.

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So just brave it and know,

that it is a numbers game.

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As long as you put effort in and make

your pitch outstanding by actually

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making an effort over and above what

the average person would do, you

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are far more likely to get accepted.

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A coach in my group,

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got an article in the Telegraph

newspaper two weeks ago.

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And how she did it was make it so easy

for the journalist to just copy and

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paste exactly what she had shared.

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Whereas lots of people would say

yes, I don't mind helping, but they

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don't lay out the exact article

with the contact details, making

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it as easy as possible for that

journalist, just get on and feature it.

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So really do go above and beyond

in everything that you do and

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you will be rewarded for it.

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Number two in our exponential

growth activities is speaking.

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One of my clients, Tracy has got featured

by huge names in her industry and then

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gained group coaching and all sorts

of work following on from that talk.

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So do some research to find events

that your target clients attend.

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And pitch yourself as a speaker.

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In my early days of coaching,

when I was doing career coaching.

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I spoke at a huge conference at the

O2 in London, on imposter syndrome.

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And that was a really big

moment for my business.

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I mean, don't get me wrong.

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I was absolutely petrified.

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I had done no public speaking before in my

life by always say yes to opportunities.

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So, what I did was say yes.

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I plan my talk, then I booked

with an amazing speaking coach,

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just literally one session.

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Because I'd left it far too late to book.

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Any more sessions.

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And it really, really helped.

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And it was a great experience that

genuinely catapulted my career.

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Moving on to leveraging existing

audiences say, this is the one

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that my client I talked about

at the beginning did recently.

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And she went from zero discovery

calls and zero clients.

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And you'll notice I spoke about her just

three weeks ago on my podcast when I said.

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She contacted me and said, I've been

doing this every day now for two or

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three months, nothing's happening.

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And then she gained an inquiry

requesting her to do a workshop.

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So that was one opportunity that

came up after many months of

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feeling like nothing was working.

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And then very excitingly.

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We talked about exponential growth

activities on a call recently.

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And she saw an opportunity

with an influencer in her

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space who had her ideal client.

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She contacted that person.

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They featured her in

their Instagram stories.

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And she gained something like 700

Instagram followers in 24 hours.

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And on top of that, she also

gained 48 discovery calls.

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So from zero discovery calls

to 48 discovery calls in 48

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hours is quite outstanding.

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She has already converted her first

discovery call into a high paying client.

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So she's amazing for

seizing that opportunity.

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And really being able to talk and now

learn from so many off her ideal clients.

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Now she has really found her

niche and had target audience.

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She is speaking directly to them

and she's learning loads from

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her discovery calls as well.

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So it's been an amazing experience

for her that I'm sure will completely

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change her business going forward.

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Since then she has also been asked

to do a podcast series for someone.

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So again, imagine what can happen

in just a week or two due to these

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exponential growth activities.

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So it is really where thinking about.

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Who has a huge audience and

what value can you offer?

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Our fourth exponential growth activity

is online and social media advertising.

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If you have more money than time,

you can invest in ads like Facebook,

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Instagram, google YouTube and others.

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On this one, it is worth saying that

there is a lot to learn, especially

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with Facebook and Instagram ads.

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It's not a case of just boosting a post.

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You normally need to have a funnel

in place, which is in other words

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a free gift of some sort like a PDF

resource perhaps then you would want

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to have a lot of really good nurture

emails leading to your discovery call.

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It does take a lot of prep to

get your backend good enough

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for those paid ads to convert.

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So that is something I would say on that.

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It's not a quick fix.

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But you can do it and you can be

committed to learning exactly how

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to do that should you wish to.

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Another warning, it is also a

way of burning a lot of money

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because I have done this myself.

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That you do need a lot more

money invested into ads.

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So for example, when I run

ads, the minimum I would

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spend is 10 pounds per day.

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That's seven days a week, times, 10

pounds, 70 pounds per week on ads,

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which would be on all of the time.

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And, most people spend

a lot more than that.

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That is pretty much the minimum

you can spend on ads to have

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an effective ads campaign.

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I haven't tried Google or YouTube ads.

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So again, it's worth a shot, but

just a warning that there will be a

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learning curve you will need to go

on to be able to do that effectively

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and really maximize your investment.

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In summary, the four we covered

were guest appearances, speaking,

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leveraging existing audiences and

online and social media advertising.

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The key is to balance this

with your own building.

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I often run another session in

my program where we, as a group

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brainstorm lead generating

activities under the headings

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built, borrowed and bought.

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So today we are kind of

covering the bought and

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borrowed angles or some of them.

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But there are a lot more.

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I think we probably came up with something

like 70 different ways when we did

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this brainstorming activity as a group.

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So keep your minds open, know that there

are loads of ways of doing this and the

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right way will be the right way for you.

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If you would like help to implement this.

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Because I think it's very easy to

know what we need to do and it's

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a lot harder to actually do it.

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So if you want the accountability,

the support, the exact know-how

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and steps then that is what I do.

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So do drop me a message on

LinkedIn as Joanna Lott.

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That's Joanna with an a and Lott

with two T's or an Instagram as

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joannalottcoaching and let's chat back

and forth and see if I can help you.

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And like I say, at the end of every

episode, trust yourself, believe

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in yourself and be the wise Gardner

who keeps on watering the seed.

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Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone):

Thank you so much for listening to this

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episode of Women in the Coaching Arena.

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I have a mess of free resources on

my website joannalottcoaching.com.

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That's Joanna with an A

and Lott with two T's.

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joannalottcoaching.com.

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And I'll also put links in the show notes.

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Let me know if you found

this episode useful.

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Share it with a friend and

leave me a review, and I will

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personally thank you for that.

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Remember to trust yourself, believe

in yourself and be the wise Gardner

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who keeps on watering the seed.

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Get into the arena dare, greatly and try.