Posted on August 2, 2012 by Stephan Wiedner

We recently made a subtle change to Noomii, STRONGLY recommending that you bid on client leads in your area. I’d like explain why because there has been some push-back on it.

In order to understand our rationale, I’d like to elaborate on three main points:

1. Why potential clients coming to Noomii are location biased
2. How Noomii’s numbers confirm the location bias of potential clients
3. If the goal is more paying clients, we need to give clients what they want

Why potential clients coming to Noomii are location biased

Noomii generates all of its client traffic through organic search engine results. I just ran a quick Google Analytics reports and in the last month, 95% of those who landed on the directory thanks to Google, Yahoo, and Bing, did so by searching for a coach in their city.

We’ve run dozens of tests with real people who have come into our office and with very little instruction, we’ve observed how they search for a coach. Their behavior matches our data. Here’s what the typical person does:

1. They think, “Hmm, I’d like a coach. Where can I find one? Ah yes, Google.” They go to Google.com.
2. Now they wonder what they should search. They know that if they simply type in “life coach” they’re likely to get wikipedia, and a few other resource sites. Or maybe some Tony Robbins that’s not relevant to them. So they do a search for a life coach in their city. They type in “life coach seattle” or “life coach seattle wa”.
3. They scan down the results, many of which are individual coach websites. When they see Noomii – the professional coach directory, they think “great, the definitive source for coaches with coaches in my city”. They click on the link that takes them to a list of Noomii coaches in their city.
4. At this point in time, they scan down the list of Noomii coaches and they either a) contact some coaches directly or b) notice that Noomii offers a coach matching system and submit their information to Noomii.

Please note that over 75% of the leads on Noomii contact coaches directly. The other 25% request our help to find their ideal coach.

Our findings are not unique to the coaching industry. Rather, I’d suggest that the way people search for other service professionals influences how people search for a coach. Try it yourself. If you need to hire a dentist, lawyer, mortgage broker, or doctor, you’re likely to search in your city. So when people think about hiring a coach, they want someone close by.

Even when clients on Noomii have agreed to work on the phone with their coach, they prefer local coaches. We’ve spoken to dozens and dozens of clients who get their list of compatible coaches after agreeing to work on the phone and then they write back saying things like “don’t you have any coaches in my state or at least the Pacific Northwest?” (or whatever region they’re in).

We have to face the reality of people’s perceptions. They want someone who can relate to their geography, time zone, political climate, socio-economic environment, and more. In their minds, there is a big difference between a life coach in San Francisco versus a life coach in Chicago versus an NYC life coach, even if they can all do phone coaching. Whether or not the perception of the potential client is accurate, it’s none-the-less there and we can’t ignore it. The bias is particularly relevant to those who come to Noomii after doing a geographically based search on Google.

How Noomii’s numbers confirm the location bias of potential clients

We have the good fortune of seeing large pools of data. Looking at a sample size of the last 100 coach match client who contacted at least one coach through our messaging system, we concluded that you are 20% more likely to be contacted if you are in the same city or state as the client.

This confirms our hypothesis that clients have a bias toward hiring a local coach.

If the goal is more paying clients, we need to give clients what they want

The data that we have presented so far is only the start of the story. For every client that contacted at least one coach, there are a lot clients that contacted no coaches. Sure, maybe there are window shoppers or tire kickers that will never become paying clients but we hypothesize that a lot of them are not hiring Noomii coaches because they’re not getting what they expect, even when agree to work with a coach on the phone. The flip-side of that is if we can more consistently supply potential clients with well-suited coaches that live close to them, more of those potential clients would engage the services of a Noomii coach.

In other words, our data suggests that somewhere between 30 and 40% of potential clients are hiring Noomii coaches. We’d like that number to go up. And if we can successfully do that, all of our coaches will benefit because a greater percentage of Noomii visitors will be hiring Noomii coaches.

But what if there are not many client leads in my area?

After digesting all of the above information, you’re probably thinking that there are not enough client leads in your area, especially if you live in a place like Dayton, Ohio. You may also be resisting what our conclusions because you want an international clientele base.

If that’s the case, then you need to work extra hard to stand out head and shoulders above the rest by getting really clear about the type of client you work with and the unique solution you offer. Then you need to be really selective about which client leads you respond to. If you are going to respond to a client lead outside your area, you better be a good match. And when I say good match, I mean that the perception that people get from looking at your profile in less than 10 seconds leads them to believe that you are a good match.

We’ve spoken to a number of coaches who claim to be a good fit for a particular client lead and when we talk to them, it’s true, they are a good fit. But then we look at their profiles and the information is not consistent with the story we heard. Often who coaches are and who they say they are on their profile don’t match up.

It’s understandable that coaches have a hard time communicating what they are all about. We’re blind to our strengths and it’s hard to separate our individual selves with the service we offer. That’s why we offer one-on-one profile reviews. We want to make sure that as many coaches as possible get clear on who their ideal client is and can communicate it succinctly..

It’s frustrating to see a business executive getting responses from spirituality coaches, life coaches, and relationship coaches. Yes, in theory a coach can help any type of client but (even though I don’t totally agree with that logic but that’s for another post entirely) the potential client doesn’t think that. They want someone who appears to be a good fit. They want someone that can relate to their situation. They want someone that gets them.

If you have any other questions or simply disagree, please let us know. Leave a comment below.