A Common Marketing Mistake & What to Do Instead
Over my years of training educators how to start their academic coaching business, I’ve noticed a common mistake being made over… and over… and over again: even though my Rock Your Biz program tells folks to focus their marketing efforts on finding solid referral partners, very few people actually do what I say.
Despite my very clear instructions—and the worksheet that walks folks through how to identify the best referral partners for them in their geographic area—the educators in my program still put their marketing attention into ramping up social media, joining Facebook groups, and more.
I’m a big believer in not blaming the student, however, and in the power of teachers taking ownership for the holes in their curriculum. So over the last couple of years I’ve been asking myself: what is missing in my Rock Your Biz instructions?
When I met Michelle Warner and learned about her Networking That Pays approach, I suddenly realized what I was missing.
My worksheet does a great job of helping you identify who to reach out to. And I give some pointers for how to reach out to them. But what was missing was a simple, repeatable process. Something concrete. Something doable. Something that didn’t require educators—especially introverted ones building a private practice for educators or an executive function coaching practice—to constantly psych themselves up to “go network.”
Michelle’s work filled in that gap for me. She goes a step further by offering a clear, manageable, five-minutes-a-day approach. She even shares language examples that help people get started (with the important caveat that you still need to make the words your own so they sound like you).
That distinction matters.
What I’ve learned, both as an educator and as someone who trains other educators, is that knowing what to do isn’t enough. We also need help with how to do it in a way that fits our nervous systems, our schedules, and our identities—especially for neurodiverse learners and educators who may already feel stretched thin.
If you want to hear more context about this marketing mistake—and why so many thoughtful, capable academic coaches keep defaulting to strategies that drain them—the video at the top of this post digs into that dynamic a bit more.
And if you’re curious about learning approaches, frameworks, and thinking tools that support educators building sustainable practices—without relying on hustle-heavy tactics—you can explore the free learning resources in the Visitor’s Center of the Anti-Boring Learning Lab:
https://antiboringlearninglab.com/resources
Building a referral-based academic coaching business isn’t about being louder or more visible everywhere. It’s about being intentional, relational, and realistic—and about giving yourself structures that make follow-through possible.
That’s the shift I keep coming back to, again and again.
A version of the following article was originally published here on April 29th, 2022.