7 Great Reasons To Have A Client Journey

I talk a lot about what a valuable tool ChatGPT is, but this post is 95% hand-crafted by me.

In marketing terminology, the customer journey often refers to how a business sees the buying process of a new client, looking something like this:

• Unaware of a problem
• Aware of a problem
• Researching solutions
• Considering who to hire/buy to help provide solution
• Making a purchase

It can also include post-purchase interactions such as:

• Upselling
• Repurchasing
• Referring to others

It could also include testimonials and reviews where applicable.

The Alternate Client Journey for Coaches

But there is another customer or client journey that is equally important to coaches like you.

Especially if you want to get more paying clients.

And it’s the process you take an individual client through whilst working with them.

This framework is crucial to your success for seven reasons/

If you would like to see my client journey, and it would probably make a lot of sense to have it open in a new tab, you can click here

And if you’d like to see another good example. My client, Jami Gibson, who is a coach for people with procrastination, crushed it with her 9-step client journey halfway down this page.

1. You can appeal to all buying types

I’ve had clients barely skim my website before hiring me.

I’ve had others who have just read pages they thought were applicable to them.

And others have read the site from top to bottom before booking a consult.

We all have our own unique decision-making processes that kick in before making a purchase. 

Some people (like me) are fairly impulsive and will decide based on their gut feeling.

Others want a lot more information and need every t crossing and every i doting.

And, of course, most fit somewhere in between.

I’m sure you have landed on one of those ridiculously long sales pages that seem to go on forever.

Nobody reads those, right?

Wrong, some people do.

Maybe not a high percentage, but brilliant copywriters and marketers aren’t writing hundred of words more than they need for the love of their craft.

That doesn’t mean it should be a wall of text that overwhelms the people who want the information.

It should use subheadings, lots of white space and images to make it easy to scan and find the information that’s pertinent to you.

You can see how mine is super easy to navigate.

2. You can set expectations

A client journey is the easiest way of helping a potential client understand what to expect in working with you before they book a consult.

We sometimes forget that very few people have ever hired a coach.

As such, many people may feel they could benefit from working with one without knowing why or how.

Which is why there are so many uninformed views around coaching.

We’ve all heard comments such as I don’t need a coach to tell me what to do with my life.

Or, coaching is just therapy without the training.

Along with other copy on your website, your client journey can help nudge them toward booking a consult.

3. You create transparency and build trust

There is a logical order to what I do, as there will be for most coaches.

Writing copy is a waste of time if you don’t have a niche.

What’s the point of discussing turning consults into paying clients if nobody can find your website?

And there’s zero benefit in designing a course if you have nobody to sell it to.

Your client journey allows people to see upfront how you typically operate.

Having said that, the client journey is only a framework; it’s not set in stone.

It’s rarely a linear process, and I say that on my Hire Tim page.

If a client has their niche figured out and their brand is strong an on point, why the fuck would I take them through that?

Similarly, if a client has some consults set up and is struggling to convert, waiting to talk about that wouldn’t make sense.

Unless you sell it as a course or a group programme, you’re free to do whatever you and your client wants.

4. It helps with your positioning

Positioning is the element of branding that allows you to stand out from the competition in your niche.

And it’s important.

Very fucking important.

Unless you have a niche of only working with people called Malcolm, who lost a leg in a freak fairground accident whilst riding a unicycle, you will have company in your niche.

Too many coaches think they are good to go once they have a niche.

Wrong.

You need to position yourself in your niche.

I’m the only coach I know that takes coaches through a proprietary core values system so they can use them in their messaging.

And I doubt many coaches got in front of me with adopting ChatGPT and AI and encouraging my clients to do similarly.

Similarly, I’m a lot better at almost any coach at SEO.

And, of course, I’m old as fuck, so that means I have 18 years of coaching experience and 20 years of sales experience. 

All of those things help me position myself away from my competition.

Setting out your client journey can help you do the same.

5. It can become a book, course or group training

At some stage in your fully booked journey, you will no doubt want to add extra streams of revenue.

Your client journey will easily lend itself to any of the above things.

I could turn my own client journey into a book that would help any new coach – it could even act as a free lead magnet to get people onto your newsletter list.

In fact, the only reason I haven’t is because my book How to Become a Fully Booked Coach is already very similar – go here to get a copy.

It would also translate into a live course (it does, I’m just not running it at the moment) and a digital course.

6. It can demonstrate your expertise

Other people may check your website to ascertain your level of expertise and credibility.

Anybody looking to interview or feature you to help their audience will want to know more.

I built my A Daring Adventure site on the back of guest blogging and had over 150 published over a 5-year span.

All those posts positioned me as an expert in front of audiences who didn’t know me.

Additionally, the backlinks to my site were great for helping with my SEO (search engine optimization).

Cool eh?

But there is a faster and easier way now than writing blog posts.

And that is being interviewed on podcasts/webcasts.

Each element of your client journey is an area you can look like an expert on and get interviewed.

7. It keeps you on track

Your client journey isn’t just for other people; it’s for you too.

I will occasionally refer back to mine to remind me not to forget to miss ticking any boxes with a client.

It airline pilots who have flown hundreds of times and ER doctors who have seen thousands of patients can benefit from checklists, then so can you.

Should I have a dedicated page for my client journey?

I don’t have and don’t encourage my clients to, either.

Mine is situated inside the Hire Tim page because it naturally fits there.

Also, most of your clients will not know what a client journey is, and whereas you can call it a framework (as I do), a checklist, or something similar, they’re unlikely to go looking for it.

People who go to your Hire page either have a very high buyer intent and are seriously interested in working with you, or they are competitors.

If it’s the former, then give them everything they need.

And if it’s the latter, give them what they need too, because they’re clearly living in your shadow,

What’s your take?

Do you have a client journey?

Please leave me a comment with your thoughts and/or questions as I’d love to hear from you.