How to start a coaching business - a step-by-step guide (2022)
Summary:
Why coaching is a great career choice?
Are you a good fit to become a coach?
3 Things you’ll need to become a successful coach
Creating a business & marketing strategy (free one page business plan included)
What do you need to set up your coaching business?
Create your signature coaching offers
Start creating valuable content
Getting your first clients
Scaling your coaching business with digital products
So you want to start your own coaching business? Coaching is a great career choice for many reasons - it's flexible, allows you to help others, and you have no limit on how much you can earn (an average coach can easily earn multiple 6 figures). But before you jump head-first into your new coaching career, you need to make sure that you're ready and equipped to do so. In this article, you'll learn everything you need to know in order to get started on your coaching journey!
1. Why coaching is a great career choice?
Flexible Hours: Coaching is a very flexible career choice. You can work from home, set your own hours, and take on as many or as few clients as you want. This makes it the perfect job for those who want to have more control over their lives and their schedules!
You Can Help Others: One of the best things about being a coach is that you get to help others achieve their goals and dreams. This is incredibly rewarding and can be life-changing for both you and your clients.
Unlimited Earning Potential: Another great thing about coaching is that there are no limits on how much money you can make. Your income potential is only limited by the number of clients you are able to work with. Plus, as you progress in your coaching career, you'll be able to increase your hourly rate or price per engagement.
Personal Fulfillment: Lastly, coaching can be incredibly fulfilling on a personal level. When you help others achieve their goals, it feels good - like you're making a real difference in the world. And isn't that what we all want?
Potential for Passive Income: As a coach, you'll have numerous ways of creating digital products (ebooks, courses, masterclasses, etc.) that help solve your client's problems or reach their goals. These types of products are a great way for you to grow your passive income and help people at the same time. There's a more in-depth explanation of what you could do to grow your passive income as a coach at the end of this article. But first things first. How do you know if you're qualified to become a coach?
2. Are you a good fit to become a coach?
While it seems that anybody can become a coach these days, you do need some qualifications to succeed in this field.
First of all, you need to be good at something!
"In what exactly" you're probably asking.
The truth is that it doesn't matter!
You can have an extensive business background, you may be really good at writing, you may have read ALL the self-help books out there, you may have worked in human resources for 10+ years so you know all about what businesses are looking for when they hire or you just might be really good at knitting.
The important thing is to identify the skills or specific knowledge you have, that someone else might willing to pay for!
You could do just that with our Free Career Coaching Tools. While they are meant to give you clarity about your work, they can be just as well used for getting clarity on very thing that you're so good at that you can turn into a coaching business.
And if you feel like you're not good enough to start teaching others, then don't worry! There are tons of resources like Udemy, Skillshare and Coursera where you can take extra (quite affordable) courses to hone your skills even further!
2. 3 Things you'll need to be a successful coach
There are basically three things you will need:
1. Knowledge of a specific topic: The first and maybe the most important thing you need as a coach is to really know the subject that you're going to teach. You must have had some experience with the subject that is valuable to your clients. But don't worry, you don't need to know everything there is to know! You'll just need to be knowledgeable enough to solve your ideal client's pain points or help them reach a certain goal (we'll get there in this article).
2. A desire to help others: One of the most important things you need to be a successful coach is a genuine desire to help others achieve their goals. This means you need to be patient, compassionate, and non-judgmental.
3. Business Skills: You will HAVE to be able to market yourself. If you're going to be self-employed then there's no way around that. But again, don't worry, once you get your basic business plan together, the activities you have to do to create awareness and get new clients are not that difficult (see numbers 3 & 7 in this article for more information).
3. How to find your coaching niche?
There are many different types of coaching out there, here's a list of the 20 most common coaching types.
1. Life Coaching
2. Career Coaching
3. Relationship Coaching
4. Parenting coaching
5. Business Coaching
6. Executive Coaching
7. Spiritual Coaching
8. Health and fitness coaching
9. Weight loss coaching
10. Nutrition Coaching
11. Sleep Coaching
12. Intuitive Coaching
13. Transitional Coaching
14. Weight Loss Coach
15. Nutrition Coach
16. Mindset Coaching
17. Marketing Coaching
18. Skills Coaching (any skills you have that others may want to learn)
19. Somatic Coaching
20. Behavioural Coaching
But before you decide which type of coaching you want to do, you need to ask yourself some questions about what you're good at and what you're passionate about. Because in the end, it's much easier to become a coach in a field that drives you! Otherwise, you might just quit when you hit the first obstacle. So find something that you are passionate about, you're good at and people are willing to pay for.
Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to get clarity on what kind of a coach you want to be:
1. What am I good at?
2. What skills/knowledge do I have that other people would want to learn?
3. What would I be willing to teach even if I was not getting paid for it?
4. What would I want to do if money was not an obstacle?
If you want to go more in-depth, use our Free Career Coaching Tools.
4. Creating a Business & Marketing Strategy
You Business and Marketing Strategy for your coaching business is going to be the main pillar that you'll build everything else! It will help you answer some core questions that will help you get clarity on what you offer and for whom.
If you get this part right, you're DRASTICALLY increasing your chances for success.
If you think creating a business & marketing plan is a daunting task, don't worry, it's much easier than it sounds!
Strategy comes way before you even start putting together your website or coaching packages. It will help you get clarity about
1) Who is your ideal client.
2) What's your core value proposition?
3) What pain points do your clients have?
4) How are you different from your competition?
5) How do you reach your ideal client?
And a few other key questions that you'll be able to reference in your future website and marketing materials.
To get started, use this Free One Page Business Plan to get more clarity about your coaching business.
5. What do you need to set up your coaching business?
So, once you've come up with a niche you want to work in and created a basic business & marketing plan (don't worry, you can improve it later on!), it's time to get into the nitty-gritty.
First on your to-do list should be creating your social media account.
Then it's time for your logo and website. As you're just getting started, there's no point in throwing lots of money at either one. You just need, to borrow a phrase from the startup world, "a minimum viable product".
You can use these Free Logo Templates for Coaches to take a DIY approach to your logo and get something decent that you can use on your social media fairly quickly.
Before you get to the website, make sure you have a good understanding of what kind of capabilities you need. Going out on a limb here, but you'll probably need something that has easy editing features (so you can do it yourself), a blog (so you can start putting out valuable content), an ability to book coaching sessions (although you could just use Google Calendar or Calendly for this) and ability to accept payments for your coaching services or digital products.
The main platforms you should consider for your coaching website are Wix (the easiest option), Squarespace (medium difficulty), and WordPress (which offers the most features, but is also the most complex).
If you choose the easiest option (Wix), then you can use one of our pre-made coaching website templates. This will help you get started with your coaching business and not have to worry about doing everything yourself from scratch.
Once you've set up your website, you'll also need email marketing software. Now, this is not a must when you're just getting started, but once you start seeing traction, it will help you capture emails of your prospects (using lead magnets) and then turn them into customers later on. For email software, you could use Converkit, Mailchimp, or MailerLite (recommended, since it offers all the features you will need as a coach, but is way cheaper compared to competitors).
6. Create your signature offers
A signature offer is something each coach should have. You can have just one, or a few. What's important is that each of your signature packages is designed to solve a VERY SPECIFIC problem your ideal client is facing.
For example, if you're a business coach, the package could be called "The Successful Business Blueprint" and it helps clients to map out a clear path to success. Here are examples of the core problems it helps to solve:
1. Defining your ideal client: who are you trying to reach with your product or service?
2. Developing a unique selling proposition: what makes your business stand out from the competition?
3. Creating a marketing strategy: how will you reach your ideal clients and get them to buy from you?
4. Setting up systems and processes: what systems do you need in place to run your business smoothly?
5. Making time for self-care: how will you take care of yourself while you're growing your business?
Or if you're a life coach your package could be called the "The Self-Esteem Booster" and it could involve helping clients overcome low self-esteem and build confidence in themselves. The package could include three core components: weekly one-on-one coaching sessions, custom-tailored homework assignments, and email support between sessions.
During the coaching sessions, the coach (you) would help to identify the root causes of the client's low self-esteem and develop strategies for overcoming them. The homework assignments are designed to help clients practice using these new strategies in their everyday lives. And email support provides a safe space for clients to ask questions and process their progress between sessions. Together, these three components provide a comprehensive solution for helping clients boost their self-esteem and live more confident lives.
Of course, these are just examples. The main takeaway is that you should not be just selling your "Coaching Session", but you should be focused on selling "Solutions" to problems your clients are facing. And doing that through pre-made coaching packages is the most effective way - both for clients (because they'll know what to expect before hiring you) and for you (you'll know the scope of the work you need to do).
If you want to learn more about pricing your coaching packages, then you can do that here.
7. Start creating valuable content
You can be the best damn coach in the world, but if nobody knows about it, then what use does it have? In order for people to start recognizing you as an authority in your niche, you HAVE to start putting out helpful content on various platforms.
Don't worry, you don't have to start creating accounts for ALL of the social media platforms out there! Just pick one or two where your audience is most active. It can be Instagram or Facebook (for financial coaches & wellness coaches), LinkedIn (for career & business coaches) and Reddit for anything else!
Step 1. You can start by finding relevant Facebook groups. For example, if you're a business coach, you could search "Small business" and then join the groups that pop up!
In these groups, you should focus on posting helpful content & asking relevant questions so you could build long-term relationships.
Step 2. Do not just spam these groups with your offers (I'm a business coach named "X", would you want to work with me?) because it doesn't work like that. Rather let your helpful content do the talking. If you provide enough value, people will seek you out themselves and will reach out to work with you.
Step 3. Next, you will need to start posting on your own blog about the niche you're in. This will help you establish yourself as a professional + it creates a place for you to link back to when you're creating content for social media etc. In addition, it'll help you start ranking on Google!
Here's an article about 35 types of content you can post on social media as a coach, but a lot of the ideas will apply to your blog as well. Remember, just try to be as helpful as possible and create content that answers questions that your ideal client has or something that helps to solve a problem they are facing (this is why doing your coaching business strategy right in step 4 is so important!)
Step 4. While we're on the subject of content creation, you'll also need to create lead magnets (this can be an ebook, free course, step-by-step guide, etc.) that help your ideal customer solve a specific problem (see your business & marketing plans for that!) You will then hook up the lead magnet with your e-mail marketing software provider (MailerLite is recommended but it can be any other) so every time someone downloads your lead magnet, you'll be capturing their mail.
This ensures that you can get in touch with people who have engaged with your website! (otherwise, you're just missing a growth opportunity)
8. Getting your first clients
Maybe the most daunting task of starting your coaching business is "how do you find coaching clients" in the first place? Well, if you got your business & marketing strategy correct, then you should have some idea who your ideal client is and where they hang out.
And this may sound too obvious, but you should put out your content where your ideal client hangs out.
Here's the game plan:
Step 1. Identify groups or forums where your ideal clients/target audience hangs out. This can be Facebook, Reddit, Linkedin, or some forum. Doesn't really matter! You can search for these groups by just typing in the keywords in search on the relevant platform (for forums, just type "your keywords + forum" in Google)
Step 2. Now join these groups!
Step 3. Start posting helpful and relevant content, tips and tricks, step-by-step guides or share your journey. All of these are good ideas! The goal is to get people to engage with your posts and build trust in these communities.
Step 4. Wait for people to start asking questions under your post. This is your opportunity! You can either 1) give them a clear answer if you can 2) or offer them a FREE CONSULTATION if the question needs a more in-depth answer 3) direct them to your website/blog post/lead magnet that helps them solve the problem or answer the question they are asking! (see that's one of the reasons you need a blog + lead magnets)
Step 5. You can do the free consultation via ZOOM (or Microsoft Teams etc) where you give value to your prospect for 10-20 minutes, helping them solve a problem they are facing. Once you've done that, you can close with a call to action offering your premium signature service if they would like you to help them even more. The pitch can be something as simple as "Hey, it was good to have this chat with you! Hopefully, I was able to help you out! If you'd like me to do "X" for you and help you solve "Y" then I'd be happy to take you on as a client for next month". Just replace the "X" and "Y" with what you do and the core value proposition!
This is just one example. There are other ways to do this and this is not the one and only option. You can try out other tactics, just make sure you follow the simple AIDA model when posting content on social media platforms. This means that you're looking to post mostly top-of-the-funnel (awareness & interest) content that's helpful and allows people to get to know you first.
9. Scaling your coaching business with digital products
While we're now at step number 9, it does not mean that you're done with step 8. Creating valuable content for your social media and blog will have to be an ongoing process if you're looking to grow and be a successful coach.
However, once you do reach a level where you have decent traffic to your website (and/or social media) you'd want to be looking into creating digital products that you can sell to your audience.
These digital products can be eBooks, eCourses, or Masterclasses that you set up and pre-record so people who sign up can take them with minimal involvement on your part.
If you're looking to get more info on how to scale your coaching business with passive income, then check out Luisa Zhou who helps coaches do just that!
Over to You
So there you have it! A simple step-by-step guide on how to start your own coaching business. Of course, this is just one example and there is no one size fits all solution. Feel free to experiment and find what works best for you. The most important part is getting started! And if you're looking for more help in getting started or scaling your business, we've got a bunch of amazing resources that can help you out! Be sure to check them out here. But most importantly, get started today and don't wait any longer!