Badminton and Marketing

In high school, I played badminton.

The sport where you smack a feathered birdie with a carbon fiber racket at 150 mph and try not to lose an eye. Fun, right? Well, that’s what I told myself when other school teams made fun of us.

Here’s the thing—we did pretty well. Our coach, a 5’5, no-nonsense, nationally ranked player, had one philosophy: at this level, you win by simply keeping the birdie in play.

Instead of fancy trick shots or backhand smashes, 80% of our practice was spent drilling two things: serving and returning.

Master the shots you use most, and the rest almost doesn’t matter.

His strategy worked so well that we nearly went undefeated for three years.

So why bring this up? Because marketing your coaching business is exactly the same.

Most coaches, when they first start, focus on designing a signature course or building a content strategy for social media.

It scratches the itch of feeling busy and productive, but in reality, it’s a distraction from the fundamentals—like learning trick shots without mastering the basics.

I’ve seen coaches spend months, even years, crafting content and designing offers, only to launch to crickets.

The truth? If they’d focused on mastering two core areas—relevancy and sales—they could’ve saved themselves a lot of frustration and heartache.

Relevancy is your opening serve. It shows your ideal client the tangible, measurable problem you solve. And just as important, it tells those who aren’t to kick rocks.

Sales is your return. Friends and family may tell you your idea is great, but friends and family lie. Until someone puts real dollars behind it, it’s all just theory.

So why don’t more people focus on this?

Because relevancy and sales are stupidly uncomfortable.

Relevancy means systematically collecting data to understand your ideal client: interviewing potential clients, scouring message boards, researching competitors, and testing messaging to see if it’s clear. It’s tough work—putting yourself out there to be judged and rejected.

And sales? Once you’ve got your message dialed in, you actually have to sell. Not with a tricked-out website or flashy funnel, but with a simple conversation: “Here’s your problem. Here’s how I solve it. Here’s what it costs. Are you in?”

So I want you to ask yourself … are you putting more energy into creating content that gets ignored instead of refining a message that compels people to act?

If you want some help, check out the free training here. And if you're serious about making changes, there’s a form at the bottom where you can submit your info for a free deep dive—I’ll personally look under the hood of your business.

Cheers,