I once heard a funny story about a man who was (to put it nicely) not very attractive ... 

 

He didn't have much in the looks department, he was unemployed, and he wasn't a candidate to star in the next season of "The Bachelor".

 

But every night that he hit the town he had a willing partner who went home with him. 

 

With all of the odds stacked against him, what was his secret? 

 

Well, whenever he went out to the bar he positioned himself next to the exit. 

 

And he made a point to ask every woman who was without a man if she would like to go home with him.

 

So he asked a hundred, or more, women to leave with him every night. 

 

And he got a lot of slaps to the face. 

 

And plenty of drinks thrown in that same ugly face. 

 

And he was called every name in the book. 

 

But without fail, he always found at least one woman who said "yes" to his proposal and left with him.  

 

So what lesson can coaches learn from this? 

 

I suppose something could be said about the power of persistence, but I took something else from it: 

 

Instead of hounding and chasing prospects, it's a heck of a lot easier to grow a business with quality referrals. 

 

Sure, the guy in this story "got lucky" often, but look at the amount of work (and drinks thrown in his face, and potential sexual assault allegations) that he had to go through to do that. 

 

Wouldn't it be better if he had friends who knew what type of woman he wanted and set him up with them?

 

He would have saved himself a lot of time, effort, and money.  

 

It's the same way in business ... 

 

You can grow a successful coaching business by hounding prospects, but in my opinion referral marketing is a much better way to go. 

 

It's so important that I'm dedicating much of the July issue of Secret Coach Club to it. 

 

if you'd like to get more referrals coming into your coaching business, you can subscribe before the deadline on Tuesday at midnight (EST) by going here: 

 

 

Marc Mawhinney