It can be easy to make mistakes in branding as a coach. Focusing your work and energy on your clients can often mean the face of your personal brand suffers. Juggling too many faces at once can be distracting as well, so if you can – seek advice. I can help you in this area.
If you’re starting out or looking to grow your branding as a coach – you want to make sure you’re hitting the right notes – in all the right areas. It can be really overwhelming.
Some errors are things I see all the time, over and over. Common ones that are easily avoided
I’ve learned through mistakes and trial and error over the years. So with that in mind, I’ve made a list of the top five mistakes I see in branding yourself as a coach – in the hopes you can avoid them:
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1. Not Having Brand Consistency
This is a real niggler. And it’s something you never see large corporations do – because they pay the big bucks for the top designers and consultants to avoid it.
If you’ve had a logo designed for example – great. It should be on everything. If you have a great logo but only have it on your Instagram, not your website, email, business card – that’s a problem. People only start to remember something when they’ve seen it several times. Not just once.
Visuals matter.
Notice how when you buy something from huge companies like Adidas or Microsoft, their logo is on literally everything. You can’t get a napkin or a sachet of salt from McDonald’s without having their branding slapped onto it.
It’s maddening to see a beautiful website but a crap everything else. And it’s so so common.
Make sure there is design and visual consistency in all of your marketing, be it online or not.
So especially if visuals is not your expertise – outsource it. Check with someone that you’re optimising your brand and not letting yourself down in any area.
Trust me, you might be surprised.
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2. Content Inconsistency
This bleeds into having a marketing plan.
How often are you sending out newsletters? How often are you posting online? Are you focusing on one thing too much, and forgetting everything else you can offer people?
This is an avoidable problem by sitting down and taking a look at your marketing plan. Having a marketing plan means scheduling posts or newsletters. Making sure you are covering your areas of expertise as a coach consistently – and posting consistently.
Don’t have a surge of posts in the middle of summer and then nothing for weeks at a time in winter cause you didn’t feel like it. It doesn’t matter.
Plan ahead for it and make sure it’s regular. Newsletter every 2 weeks. Posts every other day. Update on the website every month. That sort of thing.
But not all about the same thing – mix it up a little.
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3. Just Shoddy Content
Make sure what your posting is palatable. If you’re not great with words – hire an editor. If you need better shots – hire a photographer.
Look at your favourite coaches out there and take inspiration from them. What is captivating for you as an consumer? What appeals to you is most likely similar to what you want to put out there yourself. Whether it be visuals, words, format, whatever.
It needs to be of high quality, that’s the key.
If someone is paying you to coach them – they want the best. They also want high quality. So brush up on any shoddy areas in what you’re putting out there and make sure your content looks good so that you look good.
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4. Lack of Clarity
It can be hard to get your message across sometimes, especially if you’re not used to communicating in the digital sphere.
And there are so many ways to bring your message to people. But what is your message?
You’re a coach, but what kind of coach? Let’s say you coach people in ‘wellness.’ That is a huge term. What does that specifically mean? Nutritional wellness? Physical wellness? Spiritual wellness? Career wellness!?
What does your coaching mean to potential clients.
Don’t be too vague. People love specificity.
Speak in laymen terms for the most part and go into detail in certain areas when you’ve explained the basics clearly. Ostracising clients this way is common. If your message is too broad, or they don’t understand it, they’ll move on.
Narrow it down.
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5. Not Knowing Your Strengths
This is just as important as not knowing your weaknesses.
As a coach – you really need to live in reality.
If something’s not working for you – you need to face it. It will only serve you in the long run and trip you up if you don’t.
As I’ve said throughout this post – this is something that will affect every area of your work and personal branding as a coach if you don’t recognise it.
You need to know when you’re falling short. Because if you don’t know you’re falling short to yourself – you’re sure as hell going to fall short to your clients.
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If I’ve missed anything you think I could add – please let me know! I’m intrigued to hear what some of the pitfalls of personal branding are for you. And if any of these are areas you’d like help in, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I’d love to hear from you.