Who really uses marketing coaches and what do they expect to get in return? What would lead a small to mid-sized business to hire someone to help them with their marketing? And what exactly would they do for a business?

Since I am a marketing coach (on weekends and evenings) and I have used several marketing coaches in the past, I have a unique perspective on the topic.

I hired a marketing coaches to help challenge my ideas so that I could see a problem from a different vantage point when I worked for a big food company. That coach helped me gain perspective.

Another coach helped me see how many innovative ideas we could get by ‘borrowing’ from another category through a great exercise we did with my team. That coach introduced me to a new way of thinking that I still use twenty years later.

Another coach I worked with helped me frame an issue we were struggling with so that we could find the right tools to solve a problem. That coach never worked in my industry but he was a very critical thinker and used some software I was unaware of to help me solve a challenging problem.

A marketing coach can be called a consultant, an adviser or sherpa.  I think of marketing coaching like the my late father, Jack Slater, when he was my little league baseball coach in the 1960’s. He kept challenging me to get better, to see things from a new viewpoint and to work with me to incrementally make me the best catcher in the league.

A coach is a private teacher giving me guidance and wisdom. The best coaches push you to levels you never thought you could achieve and have both a firm yet humane manner in their engagement with you.

Here are four examples of why you might need a marketing coach.

ONLY TALKING ABOUT PRICE: A marketing coach can help you find ways to change the conversation from price to other meaningful topics to your prospective customer. When the price is the focus of a discussion, you are selling a commodity which is the opposite of selling branded goods or services. I recently recommended to a bakery that instead of competing with cheaper products, they needed to elevate their price so that they were being compared with expensive candy. They had to reframe the discussion with a different anchor. Don’t be like commodity baked goods –be like Godiva.

ALWAYS ON THE DEFENSE:  A marketing coach can guide you so that you no longer have to act defensively. Instead can you be on the offensive by getting help to reposition your offering in a new light? I once advised a non-profit not to talk about the 24 children they help but to share that they provided over a million hours of support to the community surrounded those children. A million is a bigger number than twenty-four.  And when they looked at all of the family members who were helped during the course of their work week, we reframed the argument from a new vantage point.

MISSING AN EMOTIONAL HOOK: As a coach, I can often see something that can be an emotional connection that may be missing from your communications. The old expression, sell the sizzle not the steak is very 1960’s Mad Men approach. Today, you want to sell the bond, the connection and the community. When you understand how a product category makes someone feel, you can use that insight to help bring people in with emotional hooks.

STORIES NOT GETTING TOLD:   Marketing coaches can weave together a story that helps your customers refer new business to you. When the story is authentic and distinctive, happy customers want to share the story and help you market your product or service.  What story is your customer telling about you and your products?  Maybe you need to know if  your customers care about your story?Maybe it is time to help them refresh that conversation or to start from the beginning. A marketing coach can guide this work so you are getting referrals through satisfied customers who want to share on your behalf.

Interested in growing your business? I can help you increase profitable revenue with marketing insights. To learn more, click this link.