I once read something that I think every coach should keep in mind:
"A rational man never leaves his interests at the mercy of any one person or single client. He may need clients, but not any one particular client. He may need customers, but not any one particular customer. He may need a job, but not any one particular job"
(That was from Ayn Rand ...)
It's so important that we always have plenty of potential clients in our pipeline, or we risk being at the mercy of one person.
You don't want to be in a position where the warning bells are going off as you're talking with someone, and you know that you won't have a lot of fun working with him/her, but then your mind starts racing:
- "But my car payment is due on Friday ..."
- "My mortgage comes out next week ..."
- "I'm sick and tired of eating Kraft Dinner!"
I've been in that position before, and it's not fun. And in many cases, my warning bells were right and I regretted taking that person on.
Once you get a solid plan in place, you'll never be without potential clients. If someone is a jerk, you wish him well and move onto the next one.
I've turned down my share of potential clients, for different reasons.
But to boil it down, none of them were the right fit for me, so I moved on.
However, I was only in a position to turn down paying clients because I had others who wanted to start working with me, so that took the neediness out of the equation. And in each case, I did get a new client on board who was a better fit for me.
I saved many months of frustration that I would have had working with the ones that weren't the right fit.
If you want to get that pipeline filled with good potential clients, check out my upcoming "Construct Your Dream Coaching Business", where I'll work directly with you to help you do it.
Details here:
Marc Mawhinney