Lead Magnet Strategy for Coaches: Solve One Small Problem

If your lead magnet is getting crickets, the problem you picked is either not on your client's path or it's just too big.

Big problems sell programs, and small problems get downloads. That line is the whole lead magnet strategy I teach coaches. This post shows you how to find the small problems your ideal client would want to solve tonight, without guessing.

Why your lead magnet gets crickets

Think about the last lead magnet you built. You probably spent weeks on it and posted about it all week long. Then you got a couple of downloads from your friends. Maybe your mom. Nobody booked a call.

So you decide it wasn't big enough. You add 20 more pages, a bonus video and a recipe book, and you live the same week all over again.

The real issue is that you guessed what your client wanted, and you picked a problem way too big for a lead magnet to solve.

The 47-page guess vs the 25-gram protein plan

Take Stacy Alderman, a made-up coach I use in my videos. She's 48 and owns Hell's Bells, a boutique kettlebell studio for women over 40 on Sunset Blvd in Los Angeles. Her newest lead, Sarah Mathews, is 45 and runs her own business. She's carrying about 25 extra pounds, her blood pressure has been creeping up for years and she runs on coffee and candy until she's cooked by 3 PM. Stacy and Sarah are made up, and nothing in this post is health advice.

Now picture a coach guessing at a lead magnet for a client like Sarah. She sees a busy woman over 40 who wants her body back, so she builds "The Ultimate 12-Week Body Transformation for Women Over 40." It runs 47 pages of workouts, meal plans and mindset, and it took her a month to build.

Sarah scrolls right past it. She's just trying to get through her 3 PM slump without coffee and a candy bar. 12 weeks? No thanks!

Stacy built something else for Hell's Bells: "Lose Your Fat. Keep Your Muscle. 25 Quick Ways to Hit 25 Grams of Protein at Every Meal." It solves one pressing problem Sarah can fix at lunch tomorrow, and the last page invites her to a free class at the studio.

It's the same type of coach with the same type of client. Which one do you think Sarah downloads at 3 PM on a Tuesday?

Painkillers, not vitamins

Our industry hands a woman like Sarah the dream. "Transform your body after 40!" "Become the best version of you!" She scrolls past that too, because she isn't thinking about the dream right now.

Every prospect is standing in one of 2 places. They're running away from pain and frustration, or they're moving toward a dream. Their head only has room for one of those at a time.

2 researchers, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, found that losing something hurts about twice as much as gaining the same thing feels good. So at the top of your funnel, pain wins every single time.

That's why the best lead magnets are painkillers, not vitamins. A vitamin is something you know you should take. A painkiller is something you need right now.

Your lead magnet should also talk only to the people on your path. Every download from the wrong person clogs your list and burns your follow-up on someone who was never going to buy.

Map her path with the Crossover Map

To find the right small problem, map your client's path. I call it the Crossover Map.

Picture a sad face on the left side of a whiteboard. That's Sarah's current state. On the right side is a happy face, her desired state, where she wants to be when Stacy is done with her. In between is a jagged line climbing a hill.

Every hash mark on that line is one of 4 things. It's an action she has to take, a decision she has to make, an obstacle she has to get past or a piece of information she has to learn.

On the first half of the path, Sarah is running from pain. That's lead territory, and it's where your lead magnets live. Somewhere in the middle she gets a few small wins, and success starts to breed motivation. A psychologist named Albert Bandura called this self-efficacy. Once people prove to themselves they can do something small, they start believing they can do something bigger.

That's the crossover point. Sarah stops running away from the sad face and starts running toward the happy face. Now she's in buyer territory, where your programs and your products live.

So when a coach asks me what lead magnet to make, I tell them to look at the first half of their map. Every hash mark on it is a lead magnet waiting to happen.

Break macro problems into micro problems

"Tired all day" is what I call a macro problem. It's way too big for a free download. Macro problems belong in your masterclasses, your webinars and your challenges.

For a lead magnet, break the macro problem down into the micro problems hiding inside it. So what's actually making Sarah tired all day? She isn't eating enough protein. She eats fast food at lunch and crashes by 3. She has no gym and no time to drive to one. And she scrolls in bed and sleeps badly.

Each one of those is small enough to fix fast, and each one is a lead magnet. That's exactly why Stacy's protein plan works. It skips Sarah's whole life story and fixes one thing she can feel tomorrow.

Macro problems sell programs. Micro problems get email addresses and DMs in return for the chance at a longer relationship.

How to find the small problems your client feels today

You can map all of this by hand, or you can X-ray your client. I built a Claude skill for it called the Avatar X-Ray Lite. It answers 25 questions about her in 3 levels. X is what's happening on the outside. Y is what she wants and what she tells herself. The shadow is what she won't say out loud.

It also lists the questions running through her head. For Sarah, one of them is "I can run a whole business. Why can't I run my own body?" She would never say that to a coach, and every question like it is a hook for a reel, a post or an email.

Then it hands you 10 lead magnet ideas, each one aimed at a micro problem on the first half of her map. One of Sarah's is "7 No-Cook Drive-Thru Detour Lunches That Kill Your 3 PM Crash."

Test, double down and use the Rule of 17

You won't guess the winner on your first try, and neither will I.

Step 1 is to test. Throw spaghetti at the wall and put 3 or 4 small lead magnets out there to see who raises their hand. That 47-page ebook took a month to build. A one-problem lead magnet takes an hour, so you can test a new one every week or every few days.

Step 2 is to double down. When one of them takes off and the downloads and DMs start rolling in, put everything you've got behind it.

Step 3 is what I call the Rule of 17. Keep the same micro problem and reframe your winner at least 17 ways, like "5 Lunch Mistakes That Cause Your 3 PM Crash." Keep going until your market is tired of it, and then move on.

The problem you pick changes your income

Say your program is $1,495 and 2 out of every 100 leads become clients. That's about $3,000. Double your downloads with a problem people feel today, and that's 4 clients instead of 2 and roughly $6,000. You didn't touch your offer or your price.

I've been coaching since 2001, and today more than 140 coaches run their business on Thrive Engine. I'm here to help you dial in each pillar of your coaching business, starting with filling your pipeline.

Sarah has been running so hard for everybody else that she forgot to run for herself. Stacy meets her right where she is, with one small win she can feel tomorrow, and that's the most honest thing a coach can do.

The full video is on my YouTube channel, Brian Devlin: [YouTube link after Premiere]