Send The Goose

I believe that more coaches should run an ideas-based business, which means their own ideas - but also taking the best ideas from other companies.

An example of this that I’ve spoken about before is the AO teddy bear when they install someone’s appliance.

If there’s a child in the property, they give the child a teddy bear from the van that has AO branding on it.

Obviously there is no link between the bear and washing machines, but people who give great reviews of AO often mention the bear, and it’s become part of what AO actually is.

Rory Sutherland points out that the bear doesn’t have to be a bear. It could be an aardvark. Obviously compare the market already have meerkats, and built a whole brand on a cartoon animal with no connection whatsoever.

Pick something distinctive, slightly gratuitous, a little bit silly if that suits your audience, and just commit to it.

It’s not something that’s going to be relevant to you necessarily.

It just has to be yours, and that’s the most important thing.

One of the reasons I love this with coaches is that most won’t do it because it doesn’t feel serious, and we’re trained by the industry to take ourselves really seriously.

So we strip out arbitrary, memorable stuff that would have made us shareable.

I also think if there’s a funny little story behind it, it probably does help.

The idea for ‘Send the Goose’ came from coaches who have a very specific niche of person - I don’t mean busy professional or mums over the age of 30.

The niche is people who identify as being ditzy, all over the place, clumsy - just a bit mad.

There’s a whole social media trend around these people identifying as a silly goose.

An example of this would be an opportunity for coaches who work with this sort of person, to really double down on it.

Send the Goose in the welcome pack, send printouts of the memes of ‘I went to the silly goose convention and they all knew you’. Have a goose as part of your branding, have it turn up uninvited everywhere, lean all the way into the silly goose thing.

Your clients start posting it - ‘Finally got my goose’

They’re doing your marketing for you, and none of it is about your programme.

You don’t need to change anything about your coaching to change your client’s experience.

You just have to change how they perceive your coaching or your brand.