Think a huge audience is the only way to build a real coaching business? Think again. A thriving, profitable business doesn’t come from chasing followers or posting every day. It comes from reaching the right people — the ones who already want help and are ready to pay for it.

There’s a better way to grow. A smarter way. It starts with zero and leads to real results. No ads. No complex tech. No social media grind.

It all begins with building an email list of people who are ready to take action. Not just any subscribers. Buyers. Clients. Fans who say yes.

Here’s the simple strategy that gets them.

Useful Episode Resources

FREE list of the top 10 books to improve your email marketing

If you want to write better emails, come up with better content, and move your readers to click and buy, here's how. We put together this list of our Top 10 most highly recommended books that will improve all areas of your email marketing (including some underground treasures that we happened upon, which have been game-changing for us). Grab your FREE list here. 

Join our FREE Facebook group

If you want to chat about how you can maximise the value of your email list and make more money from every subscriber, we can help! We know your business is different, so come and hang out in our FREE Facebook group, the Email Marketing Show Community for Course Creators and Coaches. We share a lot of training and resources, and you can talk about what you're up to.

Try ResponseSuite for $1

This week's episode is sponsored by ResponseSuite.com, the survey quiz and application form tool that we created specifically for small businesses like you to integrate with your marketing systems to segment your subscribers and make more sales. Try it out for 14 days for just $1.

Join The Email Hero Blueprint

Want more? Let's say you're a course creator, membership site owner, coach, author, or expert and want to learn about the ethical psychology-based email marketing that turns 60-80% more of your newsletter subscribers into customers (within 60 days). If that's you, then The Email Hero Blueprint is for you.

This is hands down the most predictable, plug-and-play way to double your earnings per email subscriber. It allows you to generate a consistent sales flow without launching another product, service, or offer. Best news yet? You won't have to rely on copywriting, slimy persuasion, NLP, or ‘better' subject lines.

Subscribe and review The Email Marketing Show podcast

Thanks so much for tuning into the podcast! If you enjoyed this episode (all about the psychology of marketing and the 9 things we use in all our email campaigns) and love the show, we'd really appreciate you subscribing and leaving us a review of the show on your favourite podcast player.

Not only does it let us know you're out there listening, but your feedback helps us to keep creating the most useful episodes so more awesome people like you can discover the podcast. 

And please do tell us! If you don't spend time on email marketing, what do you really fill your working days with? We'd love to know! 

00:01.45

Kennedy Kennedy

How much do you think I could make as a coach with 5,000 email subscribers? It was at the 5,000 email subscriber mark that I made my first million dollars online. So yeah, you actually don't need that many email subscribers to hit some pretty tasty numbers in your coaching business. So this is everything that you need to do to grow your list to a highly responsive 5,000 people as coach.

00:27.50

Kennedy Kennedy

as ah co

00:55.12

Kennedy Kennedy

Happy email marketing Wednesday. If you haven't already subscribed, make sure you hit the big subscribe button because I do a brand new episode of the email marketing show every single email marketing Wednesday. And if you hit subscribe, that will make sure that a brand new episode shows up in your feed and you don't miss out on any of the stuff that I've got that I'm going to be sharing with you over the coming weeks to help you make more sales from your email list.

01:20.21

Kennedy Kennedy

It's turned a bit cold here at Kennedy Towers. I've got the big coat on. I'm shivering. I should put the bloody heating on, to be honest. But there you go. I've also just finished, it's really exciting. I've just finished a brand new mini course called Email Marketing Sorted, where I share three different psychological techniques that I use to turn brand new email subscribers into buyers paying coaching clients and do all of that within just 30 days.

01:47.83

Kennedy Kennedy

And since you tune into the show, i want to hand you it the whole thing, unrestricted access completely for free. Just go to emailmarketingsorted.com or you can click the link that's in the description around this. So just emailmarketingsorted.com and it is yours but for free. So how do you build your email list as a coach? Well, here's how it works. We're going to kind of go really deep in this today. I thought i'll do like a ah really deep dive, right?

02:16.37

Kennedy Kennedy

so you What you have to remember is you are helping people. And so what you have to do is you need to go out and find all of these persons who have got the problem that you help people with.

02:30.84

Kennedy Kennedy

Right. The way i like to think of it is i want you to imagine they're on a mountain. Right. They're on the side of a mountain and they're looking across this chasm, across this valley. Right.

02:42.08

Kennedy Kennedy

And what they want, the outcome they're looking for is on the other side of the mountain. And they can see it. They're very clear because they're feeling the pain or they can see the thing they want to achieve.

02:54.69

Kennedy Kennedy

But it's on the other side of the mountain. Now, what we don't want to do is we don't want to just show up to somebody and sell to them straight away, right?

03:05.72

Kennedy Kennedy

They know clearly they have a pain, they have a problem, or they have got something they want to achieve. But we can't just show up and be like, hey, give me you know join my coaching program, enroll in my program, buy my course.

03:16.45

Kennedy Kennedy

That's too aggressive too soon. That's basically like, as as the cliche goes, it's like asking somebody to get married on the very first date or in the first interaction. It's too much too soon. What we need to do instead is give them a little taste, a little sample of what it's like to actually work with you.

03:34.76

Kennedy Kennedy

So what we do, the way we do this is by packaging something up that will let somebody dip their toe in the water with us. And that's going to be something that's either free or it's going to be a very low cost.

03:47.63

Kennedy Kennedy

Right. And the idea is that you're going to move someone from never heard of you to I've heard of you. That's all we're going to try and do. We want to move somebody from never heard of you to I've heard of you. So if you are opening a new pub, right.

04:03.67

Kennedy Kennedy

You want to take something from being a stranger who's never frequented your fine establishment and into someone who's popped in for a casual drink or maybe a little lunch or something.

04:14.33

Kennedy Kennedy

After that, they might become a regular. After that, they might even become a super fan who books all of their special occasions and recommends it. Anytime someone comes to visit, you always take them there.

04:25.23

Kennedy Kennedy

But it all starts off with moving the person from stranger to first time visitor. They've got to have a little taste. And the idea that we're going to use to do this is we're going to dangle something out there that gets them to literally just turn their head.

04:43.47

Kennedy Kennedy

to pay attention, to get their attention in the first place. A bit like shouting their name, but instead of their name, we're gonna be calling out the problem that they're trying to solve. gonna it in a really specific way that I'm gonna give you the formula for later in this session. So what we wanna do is get the person to go from walking down the street to just turning their head.

05:03.74

Kennedy Kennedy

from scrolling through their news feed to stopping and just paying attention, to dip their toe in the water so that they can step into your world for the very first time. It's a bit like putting the right bait on the end of a fishing hook. I've never been fishing. I know nothing about it. But I know that you don't catch all types of fish and all types of stuff with the same bait. We want to make sure that we have the right bait.

05:26.34

Kennedy Kennedy

And we're going to actually cover how to do that in a moment in this session as well. So this bait that we've got is has to be designed to like magnetically attract your perfect leads, the perfect kind of person who's going to end up being a client for you, right?

05:43.47

Kennedy Kennedy

The person who you want to actually enroll and you want to work with. And that's the reason these things are called a lead magnet, because we want to magnetically attract the perfect lead. So it's called el lead magnet.

05:57.19

Kennedy Kennedy

That's what we call it. It's something you put out there that is only magnetic to the perfect client that you want to coach. And that's really, really important. You can't do it catch all. And even though I've been doing this for a long time, almost 20 years, I've gotten this wrong tons and tons of time.

06:13.45

Kennedy Kennedy

Right. and So because it's easier to help other people than help you yourself. You know that as a coach yourself. Now, these things can either be low cost, and you'll have seen these between $7, sometimes $9, $27, $17, up to like $67.

06:28.79

Kennedy Kennedy

You'll have seen them advertised in your newsfeed. And sometimes you'll see them advertised for free. Hey, get this thing for free, download for free. And this has been literally working for businesses for years. You definitely have seen them, right?

06:40.57

Kennedy Kennedy

And there are thousands we're going to remember is there are thousands of people who have got the problem that you solved. That's what you remember. There are thousands of people who've got a problem to solve. And what's happening is they are all browsing stuff on the Internet.

06:55.80

Kennedy Kennedy

So let's give you an example. Let's imagine that you teach people to sing. We've got some clients who do that. We've got some coaches who do that. What they're doing is they're looking through a news feed. They're looking at pictures of their friends and they're looking at events they might go to all these things.

07:10.78

Kennedy Kennedy

And then they see an ad or a piece of content from you saying you can help them with their singing. And they can download a free thing or a thing that's $10 or something, and it will help them.

07:23.61

Kennedy Kennedy

So they give you their email address. And now they get a little bit of help. And you get their email address. This is awesome. And now, because you've got their email address and they've had some help from you, and because the kind of help that you've offered them is related to your business, in this case, singing tuition, then you can now follow up with that person and offer to coach them in their singing, right?

07:48.20

Kennedy Kennedy

That's the job of the lead magnet, right? To get someone to take that first step. And that is the only job of the lead magnet at this stage. And here's the thing.

07:59.73

Kennedy Kennedy

08:11.83

Kennedy Kennedy

doesn't work right now okay So hey let's be honest, you've seen this a lot when you've gone to websites and so have your audience, right? So we're going to bridge this gap, right? We're going to go back to that bridge and the valley and the chasm example.

08:26.76

Kennedy Kennedy

When people hear about your lead, Mago, and they first find out about you, They have already been offered a bridge to get them from here to there before.

08:40.58

Kennedy Kennedy

This is not the first time they've tried to solve the problem and they've seen opportunities and sometimes even invested and rolled in opportunities to solve the problem and cross that chasm.

08:52.45

Kennedy Kennedy

But what has happened in the past, if they're still willing to look for these solutions, is they've been let down and they've never ended up on the other side. They've fallen off.

09:04.06

Kennedy Kennedy

They've taken a big disgraceful fall. They feel battered and bruised and injured. They feel beaten up. theyve felt They've let themselves down. They're starting to lose faith. So before they will actually give us their attention and hear about your paid coaching program, what they need is they need to have proof of several things, three different things.

09:29.27

Kennedy Kennedy

They need to know that what you have is different information. different to what they've seen, different to what they've tried, different to what they've enrolled in, different to the things, the ideas they've had in their head of what they could possibly do. It needs to be different of all those things.

09:45.64

Kennedy Kennedy

They also, secondly, they need to trust that you can get them results, that you've gotten results before and your method logically makes sense about why it would get results.

09:59.56

Kennedy Kennedy

And thirdly, They like you enough to want to spend time with you being coached, right? So we need to give people a sample of what it's like to actually be working with you.

10:14.49

Kennedy Kennedy

But you need to pick a sample that only people who would be great paying clients will actually want. Right. And the sample that you offer might be low cost or it might be free.

10:26.74

Kennedy Kennedy

And again, you've seen these advertised. Hey, get this thing for free. Give us your email address. Get this thing for free. Or here's the thing. It's only seven dollars. Here's the thing. It's only forty seven dollars. Sixty seven dollars. It's low cost or free.

10:38.28

Kennedy Kennedy

But if you really want to build an email list of 5,000 potential coaching clients, don't do what most people do here, which is they start figuring out what this fantastic lead magnet should be. They start asking me questions on my coaching calls like, um are videos working really, really well or PDFs or is it like a video series or a quiz or a challenge event or is it webinars? What's a good lead magnet right now?

11:05.72

Kennedy Kennedy

That is the wrong question because none of that matters. As soon as you start thinking about the format of what the lead magnet should be, you've already lost the game. All of those things fail for the same reason.

11:20.28

Kennedy Kennedy

If you've got a lead magnet already or you've seen failed lead magnets in the past, the reason they fail is because we jump straight to what should it be. What they're about is where the power is, right?

11:34.96

Kennedy Kennedy

Because if you've got a great lead magnet, you've got a fantastic quiz, just because it's a quiz doesn't mean it's going to convert. Just because it's a PDF doesn't mean it's going to convert. Because in general, I see these mini video courses, or this quick training, or this internal thing, or this this template, or whatever.

11:50.74

Kennedy Kennedy

And the topic they're actually about is wrong. None of us wants another PDF. None of us wants to watch a video. We want the thing the video is about. More than that, we actually want the the thing, the outcome that's on the other side of the chasm.

12:05.53

Kennedy Kennedy

We want the outcome that this content is going to give us. So to get 5,000 people on your email list, you have to cut through all of the noise of all of the other content and all of the other ads that's around, that we're all bombarded with on our news feeds.

12:21.39

Kennedy Kennedy

And the only way we do that is by saying something that gets someone to... turn their head. And the best way getting someone to turn their head is to shout out their name. You're walking down the street and someone shouts your name. Kennedy, I'm going to turn my head.

12:35.70

Kennedy Kennedy

The next best way is to call out a problem that they know they've got. Have you got this problem? oh i'm going to give you my attention for a second. Only for a second, then you have to prove several things. So, Most people try and do this but um and make this, cut through all of this noise of all the distractions, all the ads, of all the things we've all seen.

12:54.02

Kennedy Kennedy

And the way people have been trying to do up to this point is by making the deliverable thing bigger. It's lots of templates. It's ah more videos. It's longer videos. It's software.

13:06.86

Kennedy Kennedy

it Making the thing itself bigger and bigger and bigger. None of that helps. It has to be the thing that turns their head, which is calling out the problem. Right?

13:17.29

Kennedy Kennedy

Because most people focus on the format, the stuff, when what it's ah about is completely off and it's not going to attract people.

13:28.30

Kennedy Kennedy

And the people it does attract can be the wrong people. The topic is way more important. Right. The topic of what it is, is way more important.

13:40.67

Kennedy Kennedy

So here's how we actually do that. Here's how we do it. The first thing to ask is, what is the problem that this person who I want to coach? What is the problem we're going to solve?

13:53.11

Kennedy Kennedy

What is the problem they want us to solve or the thing they want to achieve? Let's have an example. One of my clients, Junaid from the US, he helps nurses, fantastic people in the nursing profession. There's like 2.8 million nurses across the US alone.

14:09.10

Kennedy Kennedy

And he helps those fantastic people take and care or take care of all of us when we when we need it most, when we're sick, and they all feel underpaid. They all want to be earning more money for the great work they do.

14:21.39

Kennedy Kennedy

So Junaid helps these nurses to earn more money. So in order to do that, he has to really do the second piece of work here, which is not just go, okay, i'm going to call out to nurses who want to earn more money because that's definitely going to get a bit of a head turn.

14:36.97

Kennedy Kennedy

But once they turn their head, once they stop the scroll on the ad the piece of content, they're now asking, why is this different? Should I believe you? And all those other questions we mentioned. So now, in this much more skeptical world we live in today, we now have to list out this really important list. So once you've written down what it is that they want to achieve or what is the problem they're trying to solve, in this case, Junaid, I'm helping nurses to ah earn more money, you now have to write down part two of this formula, which is...

15:08.77

Kennedy Kennedy

How have they tried to solve the problem so far? So these fantastic nurses who want to earn more for the great work they do, they've tried working overtime.

15:19.43

Kennedy Kennedy

They've tried putting in extra hours and taking on extra shifts. They've tried that, but they're exhausted. They're not seeing their family. They're so tired. They've also tried doing this thing called travel nursing because it pays a higher hourly rate. They travel out of out of town and do things on the road and they visit people at home.

15:41.09

Kennedy Kennedy

They've also tried getting speciality certifications. They've gone on extra courses. They've gone back to school, back to college, back to university to get speciality certifications in specific things because when they're doing that work, they get paid more.

15:56.21

Kennedy Kennedy

They've even tried moving from the very thing they love and the reason they got into it, which was helping people and moving people ah through from pain to to to less pain, hopefully. by then They've actually gone from helping people on the front line of nursing into management.

16:11.79

Kennedy Kennedy

They've tried all of these wonderful things. And once you've written all those things down and you know clearly... what they are trying to achieve, what your perfect customer is trying to achieve. And you know that you really do know that because that's the problem you solve in your coaching program.

16:30.90

Kennedy Kennedy

And then you write down all of the things they have tried to do so far. And think it might be, they've tried to do them all or it might be just they thought of doing They might not have done them all, but what have they thought they are all are.

16:41.43

Kennedy Kennedy

um they And they're probably things they don't want to do. and then they, We're going to present your lead magnet using those two pieces of information using a very simple formula.

16:52.24

Kennedy Kennedy

The formula is basically do this without that. And here's how you write it down. You write, want to earn more as a nurse?

17:03.95

Kennedy Kennedy

Solve the problem. Want to lose belly fat? want to make more sales from your email list, whatever the problem is, and then the word without, and then you list off all the things they've tried.

17:19.00

Kennedy Kennedy

Hey, do you want want to earn more as a nurse without working more overtime, doing travel nursing, getting speciality qualifications, or moving into management? Here's the system I do that.

17:31.88

Kennedy Kennedy

Right. So another example, if b if you've been um trying to get your kids to go to bed without them throwing a tantrum and you've tried changing their diets, you've tried getting them to make commitments, you've tried feeding them earlier, you've tried playing at playing with them to tire them out before bedtime, you've bribed them, hey, go to bed and tomorrow you're go to have this thing. You've tried all these things and they're still screaming at you saying and refusing to go to bed.

17:58.80

Kennedy Kennedy

If you see something that says, hey, here's how you get your kids to sleep, you might go, I might look at that. But the chances are you're you're probably going to go, well, I've probably tried everything you're going to say Compared to...

18:12.60

Kennedy Kennedy

If you see this, how to get your under eights to go to bed without a tantrum, without changing their diet, without taking away their screens or making promises and bribing them. Now you want to know what that is.

18:25.03

Kennedy Kennedy

Now it's a reflex reaction that evokes curiosity on a psychological level in us human beings that makes us go, i really want that. So now that you've got this right messaging,

18:36.33

Kennedy Kennedy

You need to think about the format itself of the lead magnet. But this this thinking, this messaging is the most important part. Only once you've nailed that do you move on to the format. But how do you choose the right format? Because it is an important choice.

18:51.05

Kennedy Kennedy

Because you might be thinking, okay, should this be a video? Should be a PDF? A quiz? A series use of videos? What should it be? A template? Whatever, right? Well, Since every single client that I work with has a different business, right? And their business is different.

19:04.56

Kennedy Kennedy

I know that there is not one answer to this question that works for everyone. So everything that I do in my coaching, in my programs, is I want to give you so the the method about how you actually figure out what's going to work best for you. How do you decide what's going to work best for you in your business the way that your business is with its unique makeup?

19:27.26

Kennedy Kennedy

So the way you decide the answer is you ask these questions. So what should the format be? You and answer these questions. The first way of thinking about it is think about what is the format of your actual paid coaching offer that you ultimately want people to enroll in.

19:43.74

Kennedy Kennedy

And if you want people to enroll in your program and your coaching program, at the end of the day, the only reason we're going to have a lead manager to bring people in and have these great 5,000 people to to market to is because you want them to enroll in your coaching program.

19:56.58

Kennedy Kennedy

We want to make sure that If you're going to deliver your coaching program through a series of videos plus some Q&A sessions with you, can we make it similar? So if you have a lot of video when you're coaching, could you make a video that covers this particular point?

20:12.39

Kennedy Kennedy

If you give people a lot of templates and frameworks, could it be a template or a framework? So what is it that is similar? If all of your coaching program is purely just interaction with you when there's no video, no template, that's fine. You can use one of the other two strategies I'm going to give you. So that's the first one is how can you make the format of your lead magnet as close and similar to the paid coaching that you offer?

20:36.64

Kennedy Kennedy

Because if you do that, what's amazing is not only is the topic interesting and qualifying the person, but the format is qualifying the person. So back to the the parenting example, if somebody downloads my six and a half minute bedroom routine video, ah which shows you how to get your kid to go to bed,

20:58.96

Kennedy Kennedy

I know that this person likes to watch videos about parenting. So if I now sell them something which is more videos about parenting, they're double qualified. They're qualified in the subject and the deliverable of the subject.

21:16.43

Kennedy Kennedy

I see all the time people have an objection to enrolling in a in someone's program because they're like, oh, I don't really work learn really well from videos or I don't really learn very well from the format that you're offering.

21:28.29

Kennedy Kennedy

This kills that altogether. But that's not always possible. So there's two other methodologies you can use here. The second one is literally to ask yourself, what is the best way for you to share this solution?

21:39.44

Kennedy Kennedy

And what is the best way for you to share the solution in the shortest amount of time? The fastest. Because you want the the actual lead magnet deliverable to be as short as humanly possible and achieve the result that you want.

21:51.99

Kennedy Kennedy

Okay? So what's the best way? So if you're like, well, I can deliver this so much faster if it's a video. Do a video. But if you hate making video, then don't make a video.

22:02.56

Kennedy Kennedy

If you know like it's going to make you waffle on for ages, then don't make a video. if you're like, I can do as much better as ah a written report, make a written report. if If you're like, I can get them the best result fastest and the the best solution to this by giving them a quiz or a worksheet, do that.

22:19.93

Kennedy Kennedy

The third way of think about this is to look at literally what other people in your market are offering as a lead magnet. So I did this when when looking at my lead magnets. I was thinking, okay, we're going to run some Facebook ads.

22:34.06

Kennedy Kennedy

Let's look at what people are running, not in terms of the title and the solution, but looking at the format. And at the time, I remember seeing everyone was doing templates, some kind of template or workbook.

22:48.35

Kennedy Kennedy

And they've been running these ads for months and months and months. And I keep seeing them. They're obviously spending a lot of money on them. So it must be working. So I then knew that templates and frameworks are working really, really well.

23:01.14

Kennedy Kennedy

ah Similar to this. I looked at what would be a really good way of allowing people who watching my YouTube video to take the next step with me and spend a bit more time with me and for me to give them a bit more of a structured course or a structured solution.

23:15.72

Kennedy Kennedy

And so I looked at what other people who are doing education like this for businesses on YouTube and mini courses were the thing. And that's why I put together ah the yeah the email marketing sorted program.

23:26.58

Kennedy Kennedy

And that's why I've offered it to you. As I said, you can get it but f completely free. EmailMarketingSorted.com. The reason that Email Marketing Sorted exists is because I looked at what other people were doing and the mini course was working.

23:38.33

Kennedy Kennedy

So you can get that and start that journey. So now what you've got is you've got a lead magnet that is the perfect bait to bring in as many email subscribers as you want.

23:52.23

Kennedy Kennedy

Right? We've got it. and We've got the right topic, which is going to get them to turn their head, lean in, and see why it's different, so why this time is going to be different if they failed in the past. And we've also put it in the right format where you can do the best job of communicating and giving them that solution to that small element of the problem.

24:10.20

Kennedy Kennedy

but What we now need to do is put up a web page that offers that lead magnet to people so when they go to it, people really, really want it. I see so many people who've got fantastic lead magnets, but when I go to the signup page to get it,

24:26.47

Kennedy Kennedy

The page is doing a massive disservice and it's really killing people's ability to get all those people onto that email list. So you're not going to get your 5,000 people on your list if you if that page that offers the lead magnet isn't doing a good job of communicating. Maybe people go, my God, I really need to get that thing. So I'm going to take you how I get thousands of people signing up to get my lead magnet in the next part.

24:51.59

Kennedy Kennedy

You can click here right now and watch that.