I’m restarting my founder coaching service from scratch. Here are some of my marketing metrics to date:

LinkedIn has been fickle. Painstakingly edited posts have performed poorly, while a few throwaway posts have gone semi-viral. Impressions ≠ enquiries, so there’s lots to learn here.

YouTube has been fun. I’ve interviewed four former clients and a colleague/friend/ROI baron. I’ve clipped dozens of daily shorts and a few have performed well. Instagram and TikTok reels are simply reposts of YouTube shorts.

As I pored over these numbers one Sunday night, my inner coach whispered:

“Vanity metrics are distracting you”

Oops.

The single leading metric that matters RIGHT NOW is the number of free coaching sessions I complete. Upstream metrics like impressions, subscribers, likes and comments are weak progress indicators.

In reality, the prospect’s journey for coaching looks something like this, give or take a year:

That’s a long ass sales cycle, which needs a bit of elbow grease to jump start.

So, let’s break down how to accelerate.

By the way, please ask these questions for yourself and reply to me with your answers, if you'd like.

What’s your leading metric that matters?

It might be sales call completed, demos completed, active trials or proposals sent. Use the last measurable step before a prospect makes a buying decision.

For me, it is number of free coaching sessions with qualified prospects.

What percentage of your time are you investing in driving that metric?

My total time investment to improve this metric is maximum ~10% of my week.

What would change if you doubled your time invested?

I’d likely double the number of proposals sent and all things being equal, accelerate my progress towards my goal by 2x.

What’s your ideal state?

When I achieve my goal of 15 concurrent clients by year-end, I’ll be able to spend way more time creating content, which is very fulfilling and stimulating for me.

I’ve got hundreds of hours of coaching call transcripts that might make a nice book… WHOA! There’s my carrot and reason to do things I don’t love, like outreach.

How will you get there, specifically?

• Connect with ten founders who fit my profile each day from LinkedIn on my phone, before I get out of bed, or I’ll find a way to push it down my to-do list

• Then, introduce myself in a non-salesy way (Coach Mitch helped me here)

• After a few days, do some thoughtful research and send them something useful

• If they respond, ask if there’s anything else I can help with and offer a call

• Plus, let everyone in my network know I’d love a referral and will reward them handsomely for a successful intro OR make a donation to a charity of their choice

• Ask for specific intros to prospects I believe I can help

So, you can probably guess what I’m going to say now.

I’m aiming for five free coaching sessions a week which doubles the current 2.4 per week - my leading metric that matters most.

If you need to get unstuck, reply to this email and I’ll send you my calendar booking link.

To doubling and beyond,
Claff