The coaching industry is booming! More and more people are looking to fast track their path to success, and coaches represent leverage.
Whether you are a fitness coach, business coach, nutrition coach, life coach, or a coaching coach (yep, there’s a coach for everyone), selling your coaching services isn’t always easy. It’s even harder when you factor in selling it profitably.
You have a careful balance to strike. You want to make money coaching people, which means your time is split between prospecting for the next coaching client and coaching current clients.
For what it’s worth, I’ve charged up to $1,000 per hour for coaching and kept an active waiting list of people who wanted in. This is real advice from someone who has been there, done that.
So, let’s dig in with seven ways to sell your coaching services!
And without further ado…
#1: Build and nurture a list of followers
Too many coaches spend their time prospecting from too small a group of potential clients. Every sale is built on what is in front of you, rather than what came behind you. There’s even the silly belief that if someone doesn’t buy your services today, you should just move on to the next option.
Stop leaving people behind, and build a list!
The top coaches put people on lists and regularly contact (i.e. nurture) them. Email campaigns, social media platforms, YouTube channel… all are used for relationship-building.
Many prospects need to time to know, like, and trust you.
Some could take years, which is why I call this your Future Bank.
Every deposit you make in building your list represents a future withdrawal.
Don’t let the list wither on the vine. You need to stay in constant and frequent communication. People really don’t like when the only time you contact them is when it’s convenient for you. Sending a quarterly email newsletter linking to a few articles is pure garbage. If you can’t find a way to send a weekly email worth reading to everyone on your list, then you’re in trouble. That’s the minimum, frankly.
#2: Create a daily marketing habit
The legendary marketer Dan Kennedy often talks about “sending out a ship a day.” He’s referring to his own efforts to always have some vessel going out that could come back with money. This could be sending out a contract to a client, mailing a gift to someone already working with him, or sending a direct marketing/sales missive to one or many people.
You want coaching clients lining up outside your door.
Most coaches opt to open the door and shout into a void when they suddenly need clients.
Every day, you can do something to retain an existing client, solicit new business from an existing relationship, or attract brand new followers. Do one of those every single day. Never waver.
You can put a book in the mail as a gift.
Text 10 prospects to follow up on past conversations. (Text message marketing is growing rapidly and should be part of any coach’s marketing plan.)
Send a sales email to your list.
Send the contract to an existing client who expressed an interest in upgrading their services.
These small actions add up. It’s the compound interest effect*. Not every decision yields new business today, but you build relationships with people. Never stop marketing. The day you stop marketing is the day someone else in your market starts to overtake you.
*I recommend Jeff Olson’s book, The Slight Edge, for more about daily decisions and the compounding interest.
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#3: Focus on a niche
You can’t coach everyone. Would a baseball coach switch to soccer? Nope. And if they tried to coach every sport, they’d be stuck at the recreational level.
To be a professional, you need to find your niche.
There are two primary ways to decide on your speciality:
- Subject matter expert
- Industry expert
The immediate reason to pick a specialty is to represent yourself as a specialist. For example, if I wanted to hire a coach for myself on running this blog, I would look for a content creator coach. That person is best suited to provide insight on how to get my content seen and how to monetize it. On the other hand, if I was a lawyer, I would look for a lawyer business coach. There are coaches who focus on public speaking, overcoming self-doubt, and just about anything else you could need.
By picking a niche, it is also easier to connect with potential clients. You’re not competing with all the other “I’ll coach anyone on anything” folks. You are more likely to be invited to speak in front of your ideal audience and partner with high-value referral partners.
It is good to have an expansive knowledge base as a coach. In my experience, you want a coach who, while focused on your area of need, brings in wisdom and practical know-how from outside that area. When a coach is myopic, the advice they deliver isn’t novel or new. It’s just rehashing what is already going on, rather than thinking to the future.
#4: Embrace offline marketing
The internet is easy. So everyone does it. Making it hyper-competitive.
What about direct mail? Live events?
Turns out, both of those are still very much alive. If you come into the orbit of an online-first clothing retailer like Outerknown, you’re going to get a catalog from them. And then you’ll get a catalog from Marine Layer… Vuori… Todd Snyder… because they all want to put a physical item in front of you.
Now, you may be thinking, “But Charley, I’m a coach. I don’t sell clothes.”
All the more reason to anchor what you do in the offline world. Coaching doesn’t produce a physical product. At least when you buy clothes, you have a tangible, offline good. If you are a coach, you need to have physical anchors. Live by the idea of “out of sight, out of mind.”
You don’t need to create a catalog, but a short sales letter or print newsletter goes a long way. Use these to solicit new business or stay in touch with current clients.
Or do what voice coach Susan Berkley did and go all in by writing a book! This book has been a big moneymaker for her as a gateway to her higher end programs. She markets it online, to achieve an “online to offline” strategy that exposes her to a big audience but ties them to a physical deliverable. Lots of prospects sent through a higher impact sales cycle.
#5: Buy a new audience
There are long plays and short plays in business. The search engine optimization and content work I do on this website is a long play. However, in other businesses, I chose to skip to the front of the line and buy my way in. It’s like the Disney Lightning Pass, or whatever it’s called these days.
For a fee, you can get in front of your top prospects faster.
I know we all want to cut down on marketing costs and get clients for as little money as possible. Of course, that means you’re going to do a lot of waiting while you try “hacks” to get ahead. The best hack is to simply buy attention.
Sponsor and speak at an industry event. (Make sure you are prepared to take on clients, by the way. And let people know you are an active coach. Nothing worse than getting offstage and realizing you never mentioned you are a private coach for the exact people in the audience. Yes, I’ve seen it happen.)
Purchase an advertising package targeting your ideal audience through a business already talking to those people. Get in their emails, on the podcasts, etc. Speaking of podcasts, you can hire a company to book you on podcasts relevant to your industry. (I’ve done this in another business, and it worked… okay. To be fair, the niche wasn’t really conducive to the strategy, but it was helpful to build up a bunch of “as heard on” credits.)
The old adage is you gotta spend money to make money. It’s an imperfect and sometimes impractical saying, but there’s some wisdom in the words. Don’t shy away from buying your way to the front.
#6: Innovate on your delivery tools
Everyone uses the phone or Zoom for coaching services. Coaches often focus too much on what happens during the actual coaching and not enough on what happens in between.
There are now apps you can use to connect with clients, such as Paperbell.
What about using worksheets in the process? Or making yourself available via text between sessions? You don’t need fancy upgrades to delight a client.
I personally like the texting method, because it gives me a reason to keep the calls I do with clients shorter. Most of the businesses I coach need this feedback loop more than they need an extra 30 minutes on the phone with me. Plus, it’s a way for me to do outbound communication with them. I send pictures on holidays and check in when I see a major life event pop up for a client on Facebook.
You can create or curate a video library for your clients as well. Make it personalized to specific clients or just specialized videos only accessible by those you coach. For example, if you are an executive coach, you might keep a playlist of motivational videos from outside sources (e.g. TED Talks) plus your own materials. By the way, this means you place yourself next to professional motivators. It’s a subtle bit of positioning to your advantage.
#7: Connect with new referral sources
There is no client better than a referred client.
Less selling required, more price elasticity.
It’s pure magic. Soooo… why aren’t you doing more to actively build referral sources?
There’s a myth about referrals. People think it’s “just do good work and people will refer to you.” That’s just laziness. How many people are great at what they do but don’t have a line of clients around the block?
You need to build connections. And I’m saying this as someone who isn’t particularly good at it. (I’m a hard introvert.) However, I know the extraordinary value of connecting with others and nurturing the relationships. That’s the hardest part – the maintenance of the relationship.
Referral relationships can be built organically or through purchase. Yes, you can buy your way into new relationships. Join a mastermind group to network with people who are committed to growing their businesses. You can certainly go for the free local networking events, but you have to sort through a lot of duds before finding a potential partner. Paid mastermind groups have the benefit of people taking the work seriously, since they are literally invested in their growth. You get a lot more action-takers there!
Take the Business Side Seriously
Being a coach is rewarding. You solve problems and open minds. Of course, it’s not all about the time spent coaching.
Like an athlete, you have an “offseason” – the time when you’re not doing the thing you do.
What you do during your time away from the game defines the level of success you will achieve. Treat your time working on your business with the same fervor you treat the time coaching others, and you will find more opportunity to do the latter. Plus, you never want to lack for the next client. The more “next clients” you have, the better coach you will be for your current ones, because you won’t need them and can focus on clear-minded advice, consequences be damned.
Other coaches who are desperate for clients tend to give the advice the client wants to hear. When you are in demand as a coach, you deliver counsel on what your clients need to hear. It is a freeing feeling.
Charley
I help small business owners, freelancers, and marketing DIY'ers get an edge up against the 800-pound gorillas in their markets. Like your business, this site is a DIY project showing you how to do what I've done in other businesses, including a law firm and a major coaching group for law firm owners.
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