Every business consultant is in a niche of their own making. With so many privately owned businesses spanning a multitude of industries and product categories, a successful business consultant has to stake out their area of expertise and hone in on where they can offer the most value to their clients.
At its core, Antoine Joseph has made his business about helping people package their knowledge into a sellable product. His clients are usually consultants in their own right, and they often label themselves as 'Consultants' or 'Coaches' with an addendum that denotes their specialty.
Becoming a Business Coach
Antoine's clients are incredibly diverse—from fitness trainers to accountants, mechanics, 'overcoming a bad relationship' gurus and even, dog trainers.
He's built his business around the idea that every one of those knowledge products has innate value and can be packaged and sold as six-figure deals.
He's effectively positioned himself as a consultant's consultant.
His unique selling point is simple: he'll help you turn your talent into a product using a selling system that is fine-tuned to attract the ideal client.
This selling system, which is both a practical approach and a technical procedure, needs more refinement to fit the consultant's niche. And that's where the coaching aspect of Antoine's business begins: he'll show his clients how to develop their own unique selling system that they can approach in a more personalized and brand-centric way.
Antoine didn't get there in a day. The path to being a business coach was a result of much trial and error in the online consulting space. He began as an affiliate marketer with his first endeavor focusing on growing an email list through paid ads. He eventually monetized his newsletter through joint-venture promotions.
His first breakthrough, however, came about when he met a successful marketer, Frank Salinas, who became his mentor and helped him craft and launch his first product.
The day after the launch of an exclusive membership site, he woke up to find a series of Paypal payments rolling in—ranging from $17 to $97. It was amazing validation that showed that people were willing to pay to learn how to promote their own offerings.
The psychological pattern of stoking sales and the felt experience of how and why a sales funnel works became deeply ingrained within his thinking.
That was seven years ago, when he was still a full-time college instructor, teaching business at one of Canada's oldest colleges. He was now certain that his love of imparting knowledge went beyond the classroom.
So, he continued to expand his work as a part-time business coach by hosting monthly meetings (using Meetup.com to freely organize events) during evening hours at the college where he lectured.
The meetups targeted business people and included free sessions on building an email list and Facebook marketing. A link to a relevant offer is featured to make each free session worthwhile.
With room attendance of about 25 people, I would make about 8 sales of a mid to high ticket offer, or a low ticket offer with recurring commissions.
Running a Digital Agency
Fast forward to January of 2020, where Antoine began to run his marketing agency: Complete Marketer on a full-time basis*.* By then, he'd garnered enough practical know-how on digital marketing to confidently offer his services to growing businesses.
It was around this time that he started using MeetFox to run his online meetings: whether it was a coaching session or a client review meeting.
MeetFox also became another source of revenue when he joined the MeetFox affiliate program that offers a 30% lifetime commission.
I discovered Meetfox through a Facebook friend in a group I'm in. I became an affiliate because I've been using it for over a year and I love the people in the company.
His initial foray into providing digital marketing services online produced two most requested services: building sales funnels and running paid ad campaigns.
Despite how lucrative these offerings were, he was bothered by the occasional unintended consequence of having his regular client review meetings turn into lengthy education sessions, in a bid to correct mistaken notions that frequently compared digital marketing to more traditional marketing gimmicks like street-side billboard ads.
Many clients had a whimsical take on what would work best, such as "I like Twitter more than Facebook" despite getting a hefty ROI on Facebook.
Antoine understood the challenges and how to address them but felt that his current business model wasn't the right answer.
Midway through 2020, as a global pandemic began to take its toll on businesses everywhere, Antoine took on his first coaching client that came in as a referral from a friend on Facebook.
This was when his true passion became evident.
I found myself being able to use my talents in business and education while helping people deliver their ‘genius’ to transform lives. I also woke up every morning feeling I could take on any challenge that comes within the niche.
He redoubled his efforts, took on more clients, and got himself another mentor to see him through this pivotal transition.
With 1-to-1 clients I knew, I am trading time for money, so I focused on introducing as much automation as possible in my onboarding process, lead nurturing, and consultations. After getting to know the client’s area of specialty, I’d formulate a blueprint with time-specific goals, give them an action plan, and meet with them regularly to assess progress and provide further coaching.
Antoine quickly discovered that 1-to-1 coaching doesn't scale, which led to the launch of a group coaching program. A new Facebook group naturally followed, with over 36K members joining since its inception.
His methodology has largely stayed the same since then, with a focus on keeping interactions intimate. Weeding out charlatans also became a part of his process because being a consultant is one area where you simply can't fake it until you make it.
His newest Facebook group, 9 Steps to 6 Figures, is hyper-focused on results, with over 400 members despite not having a real launch to make it known to his existing audience.
A Word from Antoine
If you're looking to take on business coaching today, Antoine recommends you by building an email list through a combination of paid ads and organic marketing.
Affiliate links can be a great source of recurring revenue for any business that has a substantial audience. Antoine recommends creating a list of standards to vet products you promote to your following.
My criteria are:
1. Do I honestly believe in the product
2. Quality of product ( I must test it first)
3. Reputation of the vendor and vendor support
4. Benefit of the product to my audience
5. Commission attractiveness (rate + recurring)
MeetFox met the above criteria and was a personal favorite of Antoine's because of its practical, day-to-day use in his own coaching business.
Meetfox has become a key tool in my arsenal. I use it to do both free and paid Coaching sessions. It's easy to use and perfect for persons who share their knowledge as it provides great branding features and the ability to add a paywall for your calendar. The business reports are very useful as you can pull in the data from Meetfox into a spreadsheet to track and do your accounting.
For business owners who are yet to explore affiliate marketing as a major revenue source, Antoine recommends using a form of bridge marketing, where the products you advocate for actually produce positive outcomes. One or more products can be pulled together to create the ideal workflow or toolkit that can in turn become drivers of success.
He outlines 5 practical steps to promote an affiliate sponsored product:
Step 1: Join 3 to 5 Facebook groups where your ideal customers hangout.
Step 2: Give advice and feedback on relevant posts.
Step 3: Add 10 - 30 new friends from those Facebook groups daily.
Step 4: In exchange for an email address, give away a cheatsheet that walks them through a process that involves the use of the product you want to promote. Embed your affiliate link(s) in the cheatsheet. This is called your 'Lead Magnet'.
Step 5: Create a sequence of 5 to 10 email messages that educates your audience and recommends the product.
You can join the MeetFox affiliate program today. It's free to sign up and takes less than a minute.
We have a lot of free design assets and ready-made content that you can use for your own promotions, along with other compelling success stories that you can use in your promotional efforts.
