A 9 Step Guide to Starting Your Online Coaching Business
Collaborative post
What are the hallmarks of success?
Money?
Travel?
Comfort?
Love
The truth is - success is something you must work out for yourself – one woman’s achievement may not match that of her neighbor or her friend.
For some of us success is being not just about making money or being debt free, it’s also about how we make money – having time freedom and being able to be fully ourselves and impact our communities as we make money and build wealth.
Once you understand what success looks like for you, then you can take the steps needed to implement and develop the vision you have for your life.
If you’re looking to make an impact, bring flexibility into your life, earn a living and still be free to define success for yourself then I would recommend starting a life coaching business.
Coaching can take on many forms, from simply helping with current issues and complexities of life, to exploring family lineage and how that affects and shapes us to this day.
And the best part is – you can run your business online.
How to start an online coaching business
Some of the fundamentals of starting an online coaching business are much the same as with any other business.
1. Get clear on what you do as a coach – what is the one thing that you know you can help people with or that you are certified in as a life coach? What is your key strength?
2. Create a basic business plan that helps you get clear on your income goal, the type of clients you want to serve, what problems you’ll help these clients solve and how you’ll find these clients and work with them. There should be a link between the problem you help people solve and what you do as a coach.
The coaching industry is a growing industry - there are more than 53,000 life coaches worldwide and the industry is expected to be worth US$1.34bn (R20.48 bn) by 2022, so it’s a great industry to be part of.
3. Get clear on your business model, which is a fancy way of saying, figure out what products or services you can offer, how much people will pay you for them and how they will pay. There are many ways to work as a life coach. You’re not limited to working with private clients - you can work with corporates, with groups or you can build online courses. Heck I even get paid for running my blog.
4. Focus on building a community and getting clients. To run a successful coaching business, you need paying clients. Getting clients was one of the most challenging things for me when it came to building my coaching business.
It was hard for me to figure out how to get fully booked as a coach and to also understand how to translate the value of what I do to people so they would be willing to pay me my fees with EASE.
Once you have some established customers you have word of mouth, testimonials, and a base to build upon, which makes it easier to be a fully booked coach but you must start somewhere.
I wish someone had told me that getting clients can be as simple as building a community online, engaging with your community, sharing your knowledge and then sharing your services with them.
If you’re struggling, follow and interact with social media accounts of existing coaches and coaching companies and over time you will slowly develop a reputation and name for yourself.
5. Work on your money blocks, your ancestral money trauma and your blocks on visibility (vows of invisibility). The truth is, we can do all the practical stuff just right but if a part of us is refusing or blocking money or clients for any reason, then the clients and the money won’t come or we will constantly underprice our products and services.
6. When your business starts making money, set up a basic website. I think of a website as my one stop shop where people can come and find out everything, they need to know about me and my business. My blog gives people more insights on my work so they can decide if I am the coach for them or not.
7. Grow your community and your client base.
The mistake I see most coaches make is they don’t branch out and connect with other people in the industry and they don’t do anything to grow their community so they keep marketing to the same people and then get frustrated when those people don’t buy.
The more your community grows, the more your client base grows, because those people will eventually become clients.
8. Expand your knowledge on your topic. You want to be a leader in your niche. Training is important, although there is little regulation within the coaching industry, you can sign up for courses to help your own personal development, which actually makes you a better coach.
Even though I’m a coach, I always have 2 coaches and a mastermind. This support system has helped me grow exponentially as a coach, entrepreneur and person, which has helped my business grow with ease.
If you’re interested in courses that are recognized by an official body, you can look The International Coach Federation or the International Association for Coaching, both of which are based in the United States, but known worldwide.
9. Once you start getting clients - remain customer-focused. Your real job as a coach is to help your clients, earn their trust and respect and build on that. If you get that right, then you can make a success of your life coaching business from anywhere in the world, however you choose to define success.
What other steps have you taken in building your coaching business? What challenges are you facing in building your business?
Share in the comments section below.
