The coaching industry is growing each and every day. There’s no mistaking that coaching changes lives for the better and that’s why now is an incredible time to create and build an online coaching business.
Despite any competition you may see, there is huge potential for your coaching business to not only succeed but become abundantly profitable!
I’m going to share with you the strategies that will help you and show you what it really takes to have a profitable online coaching business.
Here’s what you will discover;
- How to make a profitable online coaching business now
- How to have confidence in your pricing
- Ways to connect with your ideal clients
- How to look after your most vital asset (you!)
- The soulful hustle
- What the real benefits to your coaching are
- How to become a thought leader in your niche
- Ideas to leverage your knowledge and create passive income
- And so much more!
Stop training, start earning
It’s easy to get pulled into the world of giving away free content and free coaching sessions when you start your online coaching business. Remember that while you are here to serve and help people, you are also here to create a profitable business.
For now, put a pin in all your free training ideas and focus on tasks that will start bringing in real money.
Learn to sell
To sell your coaching, you need to get inside your ideal clients mind and step into their shoes.
You have to know how your ideal client thinks and what makes them tick so you can speak to their challenges and needs. Knowing this allows you to use language you know will resonate with them in your sales conversations.
If you’re still growing your business, gain some confidence by inviting people on the phone each and every week.
Sales calls are often referred to as clarity calls, discovery calls or strategy sessions. Whatever you decide to name yours, these sales calls are the perfect way to get to know your prospects to see if they are a good fit for your offerings.
Not everyone will say yes to your offering and that’s ok! Learn how to sell and learn how to ask for the sale in a way that allows you to detatch from the outcome. The only purpose of the sales conversation is to get a clear ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
Be inquisitive
A survey is often suggested as a way to get to know your prospective clients but this leaves no room for an organic conversation whereby you pick up on more through talking face-to-face then someone writing a comment. Invite your prospects for a coffee over Skype.
If you already have clients, you can still question them and ask; what it was that made them contact you, what stood out to them about you, what was happening for them around the time they reached out to you, and what the defining moment has been working together so far.
Having worked in various niches, I continue to notice a pattern in why clients first contact me. The reason is usually ‘I’m stuck, I need to be rescued’ or ‘This is unbearable I just can’t keep going like this”.
Then you know who your ideal client is and where they need support you can tailor your marketing and messaging to speak to them.
This goes for your sales conversations too. Once you start asking questions and getting to know your prospects you will know if you are the right person to help them and selling becomes so much easier. Asking questions such as “And how would that make you feel?” or “Would that make a big difference to your life?” allows your client to open up and dig deep for their own answers within.
The basis of selling is building relationships with your clients. Get your ideal clients on the phone and start that conversation.
Listen deeply
To listen we must fully engage your ears and brain to tune in to what is being said. Words are said to convey just a small part of what we’re trying to say. Most of our communication is through facial expressions and the tone of our voice.
It’s easy to jump on a statement your client makes and immediately want to offer advice. As coaches we don’t need to always give advice.
Instead, sit back and listen deeply and attentively to what they have to say. Let them express their feelings and what is really going on.
This is the time you will really understand your client’s problems. Try not to be coaching them to find solutions right away allowing them to share, and importantly explore, their thoughts and dreams in a safe space with you.
Empathise
As a coach, empathy is a crucial skill. When you truly understand your clients current position and challenges will you be able to help them at a deeper level.
You want prospective clients to know you truly understand, appreciate and do not judge where they’re at right now. You want them to know that you are the person to help them whether they discover you from a sales page on your website or through a conversation with them.
Confidently price your packages
One of the biggest challenges for coaches is setting their prices. Women especially struggle with the confidence to charge what they truly believe their skills and talents are worth.
We often don’t feel we are good enough and too easily undercharge, especially as there are people out there willing to work for less money. You must not let other peoples money blocks and pricing strategy stop you from charging your true worth.
Knowing how valueable you are can be tricky at first. The more skilled you are, the more you can take it for granted as it comes so naturally to you. You may feel uncomfortable charging for what you deem ‘easy’ so haven’t been charging as much as you perhaps should.
To start confidently packaging your online coaching business, focus on the value you give to clients rather than your prices.
Consider how many years experience you have, the investments you’ve made into your professional development, recent client outcomes after working with you, how everything you have learned through clients and training has added value to your services.
You will soon start to see how valueable you are!
Try moving away from ‘dollars for hours’ to packages a client can see will take them on a journey of transformation. Showing a client they could go from point A to point B within a few months is much more attractive than just selling a one hour coaching slot with no end goal. Plus you will start building a much more profitable online coaching business.
Whatever your block around pricing, hone in on it, work through it and find the confidence to charge your value.
Be a thought leader
You don’t need to become an expert in your niche but you will need to become an authority, a voice and indeed a thought leader. This is the most effective way to be recognised as someone to listen to simply by putting yourself out there and articulating your values and messages.
There are many ways your expertise and your business can get in front of your ideal clients. To showcase yourself as an authority in your field you could;
- Write an article for a magazine
- Publish a book
- Be interviewed on TV or radio
- Host your own podcast
- Speaking at events
Know your benefits
Get really clear on the benefits of working with you. What does your ideal client’s transformation look like? Where are you taking them? What skills or experience do you have that sets you above the rest?
Once you know the benefits of working with you, for instance you have 15 years experience within your niche, then get clear on what that actually means. Saying you have experience won’t always mean anything to someone else but when you state you have experience and have tried and tested all the methods, have made all the mistakes so your client doesn’t need to, you will start turning heads.
Look after your most vital asset
To be successful in business (and life) we need the right mindset to stop any self-sabotage at crucial stages in our journey. Self-care is the most important aspect of success mindset and your most vital asset is YOU.
Without self-care you cannot thrive in an abundant business you desire. Make yourself a priority and ensure you get enough fuel, sleep and activity. Upgrade your morning routine to one that prepares you mentally for the day ahead and surround yourself with the support you need. Your life support could be an assistant, or even just a babysitter so you can have time to yourself.
Take a commitment right now to prioritise your self-care.
Try the soulful hustle
Hustling is exhausting. Make no mistake, it can break you. Life is here to be enjoyed and that goes for your business too. You do not need to hustle every day or struggle to make your business a success. It’s impossible to sustain the high energy hustling requires without reaching burnout.
Slow down, rest and try a gentle soulful hustle instead.
Schedule in one hustle day a month or perhaps a short time each week, whereby you give your energy to finding new clients, pitching for new business or getting the tasks you procrastinated on done. I host a monthly hustle day in my More Clients Mastermind and the group accountability supporting one another is electric.
To help you switch off and not be in constant hustle mode try being present for loved ones and spend quality time together visiting your favourite places without checking your phone. Pencil in screen-free time for a digital detox away from social media updates and depressing news stories.
You need to rest so you can come back to work as your best self. Success is nothing if you have no social time or quality time with your family.
Choose ease and grace
Life is a decision. We can decide to worry or we can decide to live abundantly. We can decide to struggle or we can decide to bring joy into our lives.
When we feel disconnected to our business we can get stressed, angry, resentful, lonely and constantly believe we are not enough.
Give yourself permission to align yourself with your business and make a promise to yourself that you choose to live a life with ease and grace.
Leverage, leverage, leverage
To grow a profitable online coaching business you need more clients. The great thing here is there are so many ways to leverage your expertise and create an abundant list of clients without having to work with them all 1:1. (And make a profitable income along the way!)
Create at least one evergreen passive income product that is available to buy on your website without you needing to handle the transaction.
Here’s a few ideas on passive income products you could try in your online coaching business;
- A book
- $1 PDF report
- $5 e-book from your recent blog posts on similar topic
- $10 mini e-course
- $47 webinar bundle of training you have already created
- $99 course delivered by email
- $99 workshop series
- $500 program
- Academy / online school
The great news here is that you can create an income without too much work. You do not need to create an entire program or course until people have bought it. Focus merely on the name, the objective of the passive income product and a mini launch plan.
To start selling any of these you can launch with webinar, through your mailing list and social media channels. Selling to many people at once will higher your chances of sales and be less challenging to you. That being said, do give the personal touch and share your new creation with people who have had clarity calls with you and you know would benefit from it.
Naturally, no income stream is completely without effort. You will have to spend time creating the product you aim to sell and promoting it but with the help of handy email sequences and social media scheduling your passive income products can be working in the background for you so you don’t always have to.
Brainstorm the top advice you constantly give to clients or in any communities you’re in as well as the repeated challenges you see happening for clients. Make your products about what your ideal client needs from you, not just your favourite topics or what you think they need.
Any passive income product you create should fit nicely in your sales funnel or customer journey. Perhaps you have a free gift on your website to lead in exchange for an email address, which after they enjoy this freebie you then suggest your paid product. The next step in your funnel could be a bigger course, and so forth right through to your 1:1 and VIP packages. To start with, keep the ideas and the tech real simple until you’re more confident in your offering.
Whichever way you choose to leverage the nuggets, reach more people and create a way to automate your income streams.
Truly understand people NEED you
Know that you are enough. You absolutely are enough.
You may need to lovingly move out of your own way and stop getting in the way of moving towards success. Self-sabotage can come in at any stage of business and knowing how to recognise these blocks is necessary to learn to deal with them and then move on.
You have a special gift, a talent and a deep desire to serve. People need the transformation you can give to them.
Final words
So now you know what it really takes to have a profitable online coaching business.
- Stop training, start selling and earning
- Ask questions and listen deeply
- Confidently price yourself
- Become a thought leader
- Prioritise self-care
- Do the soulful hustle
- Leverage your expertise into at least one passive income product
- Know that people need the gift that only you have
Move the self-sabotage and self-limiting beliefs out of your way and know that you are enough.
The world needs you.
With love,
Sarah
