Creating a Personal Brand for Coaching Businesses [with Arden McLaughlin]

Learn how to create a personal brand for your coaching business in this podcast episode of Great to Elite with Arden McLaughlin, founder of the PR agency Definita.

How does Definita help coaching businesses build their personal brand?

What I really do is define people. I can see what absolutely makes coaching businesses stand out. I can see things that they don’t even realize are making them stand out in this cluttered marketplace. So, Definita became the name, but then it became “Define yourself in a cluttered marketplace” because there are so many coaches out there that feel like they are doing the same thing. So I kind of pull their story together and show what makes them stand out.

What is the process of personal branding for coaching businesses?

The process is creating a plan that consists of:

• Defining coaching businesses’ mission and vision

(what is their brand story; how they are inspiring their ideal audience)

• Defining their target audience

(what is the conflict and the resolution; who is buying from them)

• Approaching their target audience

(what is the driving story for that resolution; what makes that coaching business different)

What is your opinion of the book “Building a StoryBrand” by Donald Miller?

I’ve been doing story brand for years without realizing it, so I started reading it, and I can tell the book is awesome. Donald Miller has a bigger name, but a lot of what I do is exactly the same. We take an audit of what coaching businesses have been doing and we have all the things that they need to start up in the PR world.

When they want to grow, first they have to look at if the market has sustainability. So, taking an audit always works. The next step is when they are really branding themselves. They have to figure out what is their best social media platform, where their people are hanging out, and then start talking to them. 

What is the recommended process to boost leverage from having multiple offerings for coaching businesses?

Always go back to your audience. What are they going to buy from you? Are they going to buy a book? Are they going to read it or listen to it? So it is putting the offering together and how you are actually selling it.

People generally go from least expensive to most expensive. They like to test the waters. First, they will do a $30 buy, or probably $150 or $200. Then, what are you giving people on top of what they buy? When they put you in their funnel, are you gifting them with some easy information? Maybe some cool article that pertains to what you’ve been talking about. 

Let’s take Donald Miller for example. One of his new things is about scaling and businesses made simple. He has a book coming out. He has a $200 program you can buy or you can get certified for $10,000 to be one of his coaches, but without fail, he is giving you freebies in between and it’s that little freebie, that extra thing is that text message or that effective email that you’re sending to people. That is what actually makes you stand out. 

What can the audience leverage if the coaching businesses don’t have multiple offerings, like a book and a course?

Books are expensive leverage. If you do them well, it is going to cost you $10,000 to $15,000. To sell a book, you have to talk about the book all the time. Don’t ever sell a book if you don’t have an engaged speaking platform.

Key takeaways from this podcast

The number one question that people have is: “When do I hire a PR person, a publicist?”. The answer is to hire them when you are ready to scale or when you are ready to start up. You will hit the point when you need a different set of eyes that thinks strategically and thinks about the end goal of the message. That is when you hire a publicist.