If you have decided to become a coach, can you do it online? Yes, you absolutely can. In this “How to start an online coaching business” I take you through the steps you need to follow to get coaching – online!
1. What Is Your Niche?
Choosing a niche will make it much easier to bring new clients to your online coaching business.
Your niche may come from sectors that you worked in, such as accounting, financial, legal or other niche sectors.
Alternatively, your niche can come from your unique skills, such as how to win sales easily, how to grow your business using Easy Life Client Attraction (mine), how to cure your anxiety, how to regain your fitness, simply anything that you have expertise in.
The reason a niche is so crucial for any coaching business, but especially online is:
- It allows you to be very clear on your message to your prospects, so that when you talk about your topic they can say “I really want that help right now”. If you talk generically about life or business it is very unlikely your prospects are going to get excited about what you have to offer.
- It allows you to get great results for your clients. By honing in on a niche, whether that be a business sector or a specific skill, your expertise rises and your results for your clients become phenomenal.
- It allows you to charge more. Experts charge more for their services than run of the mill coaches.
So a niche is well worth focusing on.
2. What Is Your Online Coaching Buisiness Going To Be Called?
Next, you need to come up with a name for your coaching business. My consulting business was easy to choose. It had to be my name because people are buying my expertise.
I know a lot of coaches that shy away from using their name, but in my experience of working with hundreds of coaches, consultants and mentors, your name is as good as if not better than most other options.
If you want to look at all the options, however, check out my Naming Your Coaching Business guide.
3. Who Are You Going To Sell Your Coaching To?
This part is quite important, no?
Indeed it is, so download my Get Coaching Clients guide to discover the most effective forms of marketing for coaches:
4. How Much Do You Want To Earn Each Month?
This is really important.
You are starting a coaching business no doubt to replace an income, so at best set your target to do just that, replace your income with online coaching income.
Once you know that, the next part becomes a bit easier.
5. How Much Are You Going To Charge?
Now you know how much you want to earn every month, how many new clients will you need to hit that income if you charge these amounts for your services:
- £100 per month
- £250 per month
- £500 per month
- £750 per month
For example, if your income goal is to hit £5,000, selling your services at only £100 per month means that you need 50 clients, which would be very hard to attract and more importantly almost impossible to deliver a high quality service.
However, when if you sell your service at £500 per month, you only need 10 new clients, a much easier sell!
If you think you will not be able to deliver value at that price, you need to get really clear on the value that you will provide for your clients.
You need to spell out your value to yourself, but you also need to ensure that your client spells out the value to them, their life or their business.
For example, someone suffering from crippliing anxiety may not be able to complete mundane tasks or even their job. Fixing that, allowing them to retain their income, is definitely worth £500 a month to them.
If you can show someone how to close sales easily as a sales coach, ask them how much they sell their service for, then you can give them real numbers.
“So Nick, if you close one more sale a month because of my coaching at the value you mentioned of £1,000 per client per month, my services are paid for from month one and because you sell a recurring service, I am cost free every month thereafter.”
Once you start thinking about the value you add to your clients, it is easy to get your free to £500, £750 and beyond.
I know from mentoring many business start ups that they soon increase their fees once they spell out the value that they are addding to their clients’ businesses or lives.
4. How Will You Structure Your Online Meetings?
We have sorted your name, your fees and your marketing, but how will you run your online coaching meetings?
Have a process for each meeting, which could be as simple as:
- Brief catch up
- Deal with their one biggest challenge for the call
- Summarise the action that they are going to take
- Add a deadline for that action
Simplicity is often the best answer, so achieving one thing for every session can make a big difference to their business or life.
5. Which Software Will You Use To Run Your Meetings?
Now you have a meeting format, what are you going to use to run each meeting?
I have used Gotomeeting, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and they are all fine.
However, my preference for ease of use and consistency (vital in any mentoring or coaching business) is Zoom.
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6. Which Hardware Will You Use To Run Your Meetings?
I have tried a range of headsets over the years, from Apple Airpods Pro to the Blue Snowball Ice microphone, but for comfort, lack of ruffling of my abundant hair (not), I now use this After Shokx Noise Cancelling Induction headset. I particularly like the fact that they have a microphone boom, so my speach is clear, and because they induct the sound through your cheekbones (totally works) you can still hear background noise in the room you are working in.
7. What Support Will You Offer Inbetween Meetings?
Finally, as an online coach you will be judged purely on your results, and from someone who has done this since 2003, what you do inbetween your online business coaching matters as much as what happens on the call, because this is where the action is taken.
It might be checking in by email, sending them a whatsapp voicemail to encourage them to keep going, or you might have an online mentoring and coaching portal where they can ask you questions discreetly and you reply personally, like I do for my More Clients Academy – I use Kleq which is really good at this.
Keeping the dialogue going in between your sessions is vital, so ensure that you do have some way of keeping in touch.
This is good to get you started, but for a more complete guide and ongoing coaching business tips to grow your coaching business fast, click the button below:
