The following is taken from David’s interview with Mike Turner in 10 Super Coaches.

What method did you find most effective in getting your initial clients?

Getting work through my existing network.

Initially, I took every opportunity to try and sell my coaching services whenever the opportunity presented itself. After I had been doing this for a couple of years, I reviewed where the work I was doing had come from. What I found, to my surprise, was that none of it had come directly from the people to whom I had been trying to sell it – instead it had all come from unexpected directions.

But what I also realized was that it was important that I was putting myself about rather than just sitting around at home waiting for work to show up. The principle here seems to be that, if I put out my energy for coaching into the world (by talking about what I do, by writing about it, and by taking any opportunity to demonstrate coaching), this energy comes back in the form of work – but by a circuitous and indirect route.

And when I realized this, I stopped trying so hard to sell coaching to the people I met and instead focused more on promoting coaching – which in turn makes the energy flow more easily.