You’ve got everything settled—your business license, your training, your growing professional network—but now, it’s time to take the plunge. When it comes time to get your first coaching client, knowing how to get clients as a life coach is of pinnacle importance.
Below, we’ll walk you through the basics. From networking to marketing and everything in between, there are essential steps that you can take to ensure your coaching business kicks off on the right foot.
Show Your Value by Offering Free Sessions
The first step in knowing how to get coaching clients is demonstrating your value. Clients need to know that when they pay for your service, they’re making a worthwhile investment in their personal growth. One way to assure them of this is by making your value abundantly clear to them before they’ve even signed up for your service. You can do this by offering free introductory coaching sessions
But, it’s important to know there is a right way and a wrong way to offer free sessions.
- First, you need to structure your session around clearly defined outcomes so that your potential client receives real value and experiences that you can offer them through coaching.
- Second, you want to avoid doing what many coaches do, which is to finish a great coaching session and fail to make an offer. It can be awkward, so it’s important to have a pre-planned strategy for making a compelling offer so you don’t leave it to chance. And, this is another reason you need to have a well-structured coaching program to offer and know how to describe the outcomes.
- Lastly, you need to set a fee that reflects the value you offer and not devalue yourself by negotiating down your fee, even if the client claims they cannot afford you. Charging what you’re worth builds your confidence in your offer and increases your client’s level of commitment to following through.
No matter how you choose to approach your introductory sessions, always keep in mind that you are making a value proposition to your potential clients. You’re saying to them: “Here’s my service, here’s how it can improve your life, and here’s why I’m excited about that.” Getting that message across is your first step in building a thriving business.
Consider a Masterclass For More Training
If you’re a little unsure what your value-add is, don’t worry. Our comprehensive Life Coaching Business Masterclass has all the information and tools you need to give your passion wheels and start a serious business. It also includes our course about offering free sessions! We’ll show you exactly how you can start improving clients’ lives through coaching so you can get your business off the ground.
Build Joint Ventures and Professional Networks
Think about this. There are people and organizations out there that already have an audience that is dying for your solution, just waiting for you. All you have to do is figure out who already works with your tribe. It’s so simple.
Here’s how it works:
- You know who your tribe is
- You know where they do business
- You create a partnership with those businesses
- The best part is that this works offline and online
That’s where networking comes in. As you build your business, it’s important to make connections and meet established professionals along the way. Maybe that’s a mentor who’s been in the coaching business for decades, or maybe it’s just an established coach who’s been at it for just a couple of years. Or maybe it’s some friends from a cohort of peers who are also just getting started and have figured out how to get your first life coaching client.
Better yet, why not try all of the above? No matter where folks find themselves in the life coaching business, it’s always a great idea to build out your network and get in front of the audiences you’re seeking to serve. Here are a few examples:
Example 1: Let’s say you want to coach people on how to overcome a divorce.
Where do you think those people might be?
Examples of where to find them: Women’s resource center, divorce forums, divorce lawyers
Example 2: You are a health coach who specializes in helping people create healthy diets.
Where do you think those people might be?
Example of where to find them: a more direct connection would be by partnering with personal trainers.
Stay Persistent
As you launch your coaching career path, make yourself known within the coaching community. Attend seminars, webinars, conferences, and meet-and-greets whenever they pop up on your radar. Like everything in the INDIEpreneur game, it often takes persistence. But persistence is worth it when a connection translates into a new client.
You can learn more about joint ventures and networking in our course that dives deep into this topic or through the Masterclass, which includes this course.
Speak Your Truth
Knowing how to get coaching clients means knowing how to present yourself in front of your desired audience. This can be someone else’s audience (a joint venture) or you can host your own workshop. However you do it, you want to get in front of groups of people who are part of your tribe, speak in a way that helps them get to know you, and let them know how you can help them.
This method is so effective that some people even PAY to speak on a stage when the audience is the right fit!
By offering an introductory program through workshops or speaking gigs, you have the opportunity to provide value for the audience, get them results, and then offer them services that help them take it further. The good news about speaking is that you can do it WITHOUT feeling or sounding “salesy.”
The secret is a little trick called “seeding” and here is how it works…
- Pick one piece of your larger coaching program that gets people rapid results—this will be the focus of your presentation or workshop.
- Show the audience how this one step fits into the big picture (the 3 to 5 steps) of your full process. (This is part of the seeding process; it shows them that there is a comprehensive program or process that they need in order to achieve their desired outcome.)
- Tell them, “due to time limitations, I can’t cover everything in detail today, but we are going to deep dive into today. For those of you who want to know more, I promise to let you know how to take this further at the end.” (This is the other part of the seeding. It subtly lets them know that you will be talking about your coaching program more at the end.)
- During the presentation, dive deep into that one topic—give them everything! Doing this provides real value and develops trust.
- At the end, tell them “as promised, I’m going to tell you a little about how I can help you.” Do a quick recap of the big picture, explain how your program walks them through these steps, and tell them how they can sign up.
Whether you’re searching for how to get business coaching clients or how to build a mindset coaching business, seeding can be a great strategy for building genuine interest in your products.
We have two awesome resources if using public speaking or workshops as a strategy for getting life coaching clients. Become a certified workshop facilitator or learn more about how to seed through a well-designed introductory presentation.
How to Get Clients as a Life Coach: Key Points
Here’s the truth: it takes hard work and perseverance to get your first clients as a life coach. However, as a freedom-loving INDIEpreneur, all you need to do is let your passion shine through into your promotional efforts; people will see your drive and know that you’re the real deal.
- Our 5-courses-in-1 masterclass is built to get you started on your path today.
Channeling your drive through effective methods, like marketing efforts, proactive speaking engagements, and smart networking are all excellent ways to get your first client. And if you keep at it, soon enough you’ll find yourself with a full schedule and thinking about your next steps growing your business.
Learn how to apply all of these strategies and more to your business with our:
