What a 10-Year Follow-Up Taught Me About Coach Marketing

I find it hard to switch off from being a coach.

REALLY hard.

Not in that deeply noble (and somewhat grandiose), “I was born to serve humanity” kind of way.

More in the someone asks what I do...

...I tell them...

...and approximately 11 minutes and 13 seconds later they’re telling me what they REALLY want from life, why they haven’t done it yet and what they secretly think is getting in the way.

Occupational hazard of being a coach, I suppose, but I suspect it's something about me and the way I attract what I call 'beautiful weirdos'.

(Don't be offended, it's both a term of endearment AND a genuine compliment)

It gets particularly interesting on planes.

Because let's face it, once somebody realises they’ve accidentally sat next to a coach and spilled the beans on what's going on in their lives...

...they can’t even escape. :)

No polite “anyway mate, lovely chatting” and wandering off.

No pretending they’ve suddenly remembered an urgent appointment.

Nope.

They’re strapped into a metal tube at 35,000 feet.

With me.

For 12 hours of DEEP soul-interrogation.

(Although, to be fair, I’m never entirely sure which one of us is actually captive. I mean, I can't escape either, but I'll tell you about how that works out another time)

So...

Nearly ten years ago I got chatting to a fella on a flight to Thailand.

Let's call him 'Dave'.

I don’t remember EVERY detail of the conversation now.

But I remember the shape of it.

What he wanted.

What was getting in the way.

The usual stuff that starts off sounding like a conversation about work or goals...

...and somehow ends up somewhere much deeper.

We talked for hours.

Then the plane landed.

We went our separate ways.

And that was that.

Or so I thought.

Then today, nearly TEN YEARS later, Dave emailed me.

He told me that conversation had stayed with him.

That afterwards he went down a path of spiritual self-reflection and started applying what we’d spoken about to his life.

Today he owns a successful business doing what he loves.

He does CrossFit every day.

He hikes and wild camps in the Alps every year.

He spends time at his second home in Phuket with his wife and kids.

He doesn’t use social media.

Barely uses the internet.

And apparently never even looked at any of my stuff online afterwards.

Which I absolutely love.

Because there was no funnel.

No nurture sequence.

No lead magnet.

No retargeting campaign.

No “seven touchpoint conversion strategy”.

Just two people sitting next to each other on a plane having a proper conversation.

And one of them doing something with it.

Nearly ten years later...

...he wrote to tell me it mattered and made a difference.

Oof!

That landed.

Because sometimes we become so obsessed with reach, scale, audience size and visibility that we forget something very simple.

Not because you dazzled them.

Not because you “closed” them.

Not because you persuaded them to follow you.

But because for a few hours...

...you helped them see something they couldn’t quite see before.

And then they went away and built something from it.

Anyway...

Dave emailed me TODAY.

Nearly a decade later.

Which may officially be the longest follow-up sequence I’ve EVER run :)