In the digital age of today, becoming a coach has never been easier. At the same time, competition has gotten a lot stronger.

With that being said, the reality is it’s become a lot harder to find clients for your coaching business.

In today’s post, I’m going to share with you three steps to put yourself ahead of the competition and get your first online coaching clients.

Step 1: Get clear on business model

Before we can even begin discussing how to get coaching clients, we need to get clear on a few things first.

More specifically, the following:

1) Know your ideal clients (and their pains)

The very first step to getting your first online coaching clients is knowing who your coaching clients are going to be! (Obviously)

You need to be clear on two main things:

Demographics:

Demographics tell you “who” your ideal coaching client is.

Things such as:

• Age
• Sex
• Occupation
• Income Level
• Hobbies or Passions (for very “niche” niches)

Psychographics:

Psychographics tell you “why” your ideal coaching client needs you (their pains)

Some examples:

• Experiencing major life traumas (and need a “pick-me-upper”)
• Trying to lose “x” pounds (at no avail)
• Going through a career change (but need some advice)
• Attempting to make better health choices (but don’t know where to start)

2) Offer a solution they can’t refuse

Once you’ve identified exactly who your ideal coaching client is (and exactly why they should pay you to help them), the next step is to innovate and craft a solution that they simply can’t refuse.

This is where a lot of coaches go wrong.

The one thing to remember here is people don’t pay for coaches, they pay for results

What NOT to do:

• Offer “enter here coaching services” (very uncompelling)
• Offer 30-minute, 60-minute, or 90-minute sessions for $50-$500

What to do instead:

• Offer “expected result ” within “anticipated timeframe” (very compelling)
• Offer 4-week, 6-week, or 12-week programs for $500-$5000

See the difference? People pay for results, and your offer needs to be compelling enough to create the positive expectancy in your coaching clients’ minds before they can buy from you.

Step 2: Generate some leads

Once we’ve gotten clear on our unique business dynamics, the next step is to start generating some conversations from our ideal coaching clients.

I’ll share one of many strategies that work tremendously for my clients.

1) Create an audience on social media

The first step to generating leads is to build a relevant, targeted around your niche. 

Here’s a few simple ways to build an audience full of possible coaching clients.

• Follow and unfollow people using hashtags
• Add facebook friends via groups
• Invite LinkedIn connections via groups

2) Generate conversations with our audience

Once we create an audience full of potential coaching clients, the next step is to generate conversations (phone calls) with them.

Here’s a few simple way to generate conversations with potential coaching clients.

• Create content that attracts interest (& Invite them to message you)
• Message them yourself

Step 3: Work your sales process

Once we’ve built an audience full of potential coaching clients, the next step to securing your first coaching clients is to handle ourselves well during the conversation.

Here’s a few tips as to how to structure and handle yourself during phone conversation with potential coaching clients.

1) Build a ‘coaching” relationship

It’s important to understand that the process of getting a client is very similar to the process of building any kind of relationship.

However, the major difference here is you’re the one influencing them. It’s not mutual.

You have/know something that they want. And that’s why they’re paying you to be their coach.

It’s important that you establish that from the start.

Be cool, calm, and collected. And remember that you’re in charge.

2) Assess their needs (and relate to their situation)

For your potential coaching client to hire you as their coach, they need to buy your “compelling offer” we created in Step 1.

For them to buy from you however, there needs to be what’s called a “Message to Market match” - which is a fancy way of saying, your offer has to solve a problem that they currently have in their life, business, etc.

In essence, there’s need to be a fit between your offer and your potential coaching client - this means you need to figure out the challenge that they’re facing in their lives.

Once you do that, you can move on to the next step.

3) Offer a solution they can’t refuse (and guarantee a result)

Once you’ve built a relationship where your potential coaching client sees you as their coach and their need matches your offer, now we move onto the most important step:

Offering your solution

Your coaching client needs to buy your offer in order to officially become your coach. The best way to promote your offer is to follow my 3-step pitch process:

We want to be aware of what they’re currently doing to solve this problem.

The reason this is so powerful is that it helps them to think about their current trials and realize a fault in their own system - and it makes them realize why they may actually need your help after all.

This sets you up to explain your offer in the most powerful and relevant position possible.

Once we have our potential coaching clients thinking about what they’re currently doing, the next step is to guide them down a better route.

See, we’re not pitching a product as much as we are guiding them down a path where we show them how to solve the problem themselves.

This is very powerful because it gives them a chance to show them that we know our stuff and are able show them things about themselves, their business, etc. that they never would have thought about themselves.

Once we’ve explained our solution in detail to our potential coaching client, the next step is to make sure they completely understand how it would work for them and if they have any questions.

The reason is to weed out any objections they may have (an unanswered question in their mind that stops them from buying) - they must not have any before they move on to the next step:

4) Close the deal

The last step to getting your first coaching clients is the easiest part: closing the deal.

At this point, you must ask for the sale (ask them if they’d like to start working with you, get started with your coaching program).

Once they say yes, simply sign any paperwork involved (if there is any), ask how they’d like pay for your program, and collect their payment info.

Once that is completed, congratulations! You’ve earned a new client.

If you need any additional help, feel free to reach out to me here.