Hiring a marketing coach can be a challenging affair to do properly. While most anyone can call themselves a marketing coach, not all of these individuals are above board. Some may not even have legitimate skills in the field of Internet marketing. Fortunately, there are ways to determine the skill level of your potential coach and methods for ensuring that you receive fair value for your investment.
Know Your Intended Ends
Any plan of action, particularly a marketing plan, needs to begin with what you intend to accomplish. In the same vein, working with a marketing coach to further develop your skills and plan also needs to have a set of concrete goals. These goals can be written in percentages such as “improve conversions by 50%,” or they can consist of specific dollar amounts such as “increase total sales by $5,000 versus last quarter.” Regardless of what you want to improve specifically, having it written down and firmly in mind will result in the best experience for you and the coach you ultimately choose to work with.
Determine What Attributes Your Coach Should Have
Not every marketing coach is going to be a good fit with every person they could be coaching. It is important to understand that different personality traits can make for better or worse relationships. When a coach fulfills all of the attributes you want, the relationship will be more likely to succeed and you will be far more likely to achieve your goals. If there is too much friction due to the marketing coach not having the traits you desire, this can impede the achievement of your goals. It can be difficult to attract the right kind of coach if you do not know what attributes you want this person to have, so defining them early on can be very valuable.
Investigate Your Potential Coach’s Credentials
You do not necessarily need to verify all of your coach’s references, although this is a solid idea. Your coach need not have a particular professional pedigree nor a degree in a given field. But when you hire a marketing coach, they need to be able to present you with some proof that they have the ability to successfully market goods and/or services. If they do not present evidence of having this ability, you should not work with them unless they are willing to work on a contingency basis and you are willing to take a chance.
Set Up a Detailed Contract
The contract is not merely a matter of when and how much your marketing coach is going to get paid. This also sets down the terms of cancellation in case the relationship ends up not working successfully. This sets up what your coach is offering with regard to urgent help, phone contact, emailing and other forms of contact that will hopefully answer your questions and help you succeed. Here is where you determine the coach’s full value proposition, which is a helpful mindset to keep while you develop your value proposition.
Determine Benchmarks
Benchmarks will help you determine when you should be seeing particular results. In addition to this, the benchmarks you and your coach outline will determine when the coach gets paid. As a general rule, do not work with a coach who insists on full pre-payment, as their motivation to continue working with you will be significantly diminished in most cases once they have received payment. Do not ever work with a coach who does not want to define benchmarks, as having no benchmarks is an indication of lacking experience on the coach’s part.
