The following is taken from David’s interview with Anna Dargitz in 10 Super Coaches.

What top three methods, in order, did you use to get your clients in the first 2 years?

Your question implies that I had lots of clients my first 2 years. I did not. I had about 5-6 per month generally, though they stayed with me for years.

My top method, at first, was asking friends and family because I didn’t have a ready-made network and position at my disposal. It wasn’t pretty. I felt needy and desperate with an overlay of optimism. And of course, it was all quite unconscious. What I was aware of was that I was a new coach in a new coaching industry. I had to do a lot of educating.

My second method was to attend networking events, especially Chamber of Commerce. This too felt dry. I was a fish out of water. I did my best to live up to some measure of success defined as “number of paying clients” and felt miserable about my lack of success.

My third method was asking for referrals, handing out brochures and business cards, public speaking and building a website on a shoe string budget, all with little success. Everything I read, everything I was told indicated that this was how it was done. I thought, “there must be something wrong with me”.