There are many business/life coaches who not only have a coaching business but are experienced entrepreneurs who can talk the talks and walk the walk when it comes to building and maintaining a successful business online. Their level of expertise is authentic and in most cases, they have the desire to help other business owners become successful and have their dreams fulfilled too.
What you have to offer from that experience can help a struggling business owner a great deal and provide massive value as your willingness and practice of being hands-on means they get tried and tested information so hence the result if applied.
In other words, when someone seeks you out, and or secures your services, they are not tapping into an anonymous internet persona or a textbook. But rather, they are gaining access to a living breathing business professional who generously gives them your time, talents, advice and proven expertise.
A client is a recipient of all of your experience and business know-how. And if that isn’t enough, they also receive it in a customizable fashion, tailored to meet their specific needs and goals.
However, just like numerous other business owners, it’s not uncommon for many business consultants to have difficulty scaling their operations.
The good news is…in this post you can discover the ways and means to do exactly that, and do it simply and easily.
The following detailed steps will guide you.
Contents
- Step 1 – What is Your Coaching Business Niche?
- Step 2 – Write your compelling story. This is YOUR story of why YOU are in this niche.
- Step 3 – How to Attract Clients Without Difficulty
- Step 4 – Signature system / Coaching Methodology
- Step 5 – Create an Automated Selling System For Your Business Coaching Package
- Step 6 – Ensure the Growth of Your Business by Following These Steps
- Step 7 – Create a Sales Funnel Your Audience Will Respond To
- Step 8 – Drive Traffic to your lead magnet
- Step 9 – Sell Your Core Offer / Coaching Package
- Conclusion
Step 1 – What is Your Coaching Business Niche?
Decide what your niche is. How much experience do you have in this space or can learn about this space to help others?
Are you a big-picture individual who wants to focus on all areas of your client’s company…?
Or do you want to be a specialist and zero in on a specific department of a business?
Maybe you’re a sales wizard. Or you could be brimming with expertise in the areas of finance or securing joint ventures. Perhaps like the president in his former life, you are an expert at ‘The art of the deal”.
Only you know the answer to this… so you will have to decide.
But let’s use the practice of law as an example.
An attorney who practices law as a generalist earns considerably less than a lawyer who specializes in, let’s say…personal injury law.
There’s a considerable difference between a generalist and a specialist
By specializing, you are perceived as someone who has, and can delve deep into your well of knowledge and offer solutions to obstacles and pressing issues a generalist cannot.
This kind of expertise is looked upon as having greater value than what would normally be possessed or made available by a lawyer who dabbles in many areas of the law.
Next, you need to look inside yourself and ask the following two questions:
- Ponder your skill sets, acquired knowledge, and hands-on experience. Then ask and decide what is the number #1 problem you can solve for your clients.
- What makes your problem-solving solution unique?
When you are able to deliver genuine results for your clients in a unique way, you will generate loyal among your clients and it won’t be long before you acquire more followers than you could have ever imagined.
Your next step is attracting your ideal clients.
Step 2 – Write your compelling story. This is YOUR story of why YOU are in this niche.
For example, when you were 40 you got into a dispute with a colleague from work which could have got you fired. But because you had learned about emotional intelligence you were able to manage the situation very well and ensured you closed the deal which made the business profit… but that would not have been possible if you were not able to regulate your own emotions and those of your team.
Your story can also be someone else’s story – your parent, partner, sibling, best friend, whatever. But you need a compelling story of why you are spending your time in this niche. It will connect you to readers in a way nothing else can.
Step 3 – How to Attract Clients Without Difficulty
There are three concrete steps you can take to acquire new clients and move your coaching business forward.
Pay-per-Click Advertising
By far, pay per click (PPC) ads via Facebook, Google AdWords, and LinkedIn are the fastest way to start sending people to your funnel and content.
Social Meida
Social media platforms make it easy to target clients who are ideal for you and your coaching business. Facebook is especially affective. For the simple reason their platform has built in demographic, interest, and behavior-based targeting abilities.
However, keep in mind that testing different types of ads in your campaigns is key to turning your advertising into profitable undertakings.
Strategic Partnerships
Developing a profitable and mutually benefitting partnership is dependent upon you finding a partner who provides a product or service that complements yours.
A strategic partner is not your competition, for the simple reason you both share the same target audience.
Expert Positioning
One of the very best ways to be seen as an expert in your particular area of expertise is for you to post highly valuable content your audience finds irresistible.
You can create a great deal of buzz with blog posts, videos, and social media posts. In fact, once your content begins to attract attention due to folks sharing it, it won’t too long before your content goes viral.
FREE content
Create great content to give away for FREE. In fact, give away ALL of your content. Use it to get subscribers, to engage people on social media, to get them on your blog and other people’s blogs and so forth. Give it all away. This way you have ZERO pressure to create products and funnels but you are still perceived as being the expert.
Step 4 – Signature system / Coaching Methodology
This is where you’ll start to get really clear on what your coaching business will be about. What problem are you solving for your clients? And what is your unique coaching methodology or approach?
Your coaching business should have a signature system or coaching methodology or course that sets it apart from the competition. This is what will make you unique and give you an edge in the market.
Think about what makes your coaching different and how you can best help your clients achieve their goals. What is your coaching style? What methods or tools do you use? How does your coaching differ from other coaches out there?
Answering these questions will help you to create a signature system for your coaching business that will make you stand out from the crowd.
If you’re not sure where to start, here are a few coaching models that you can check out:
- The GROW Model
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
- The Wheel of Life
- Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)
- Time Line Therapy(TM)
- Digital SIMAC Method
Once you have your coaching business’ signature system or coaching methodology in place, it’s time to move on to the next step…
Step 5 – Create an Automated Selling System For Your Business Coaching Package
In order to generate leads, the first portion of your sales funnel should be a landing page.
A landing page can serve as a valuable and very effective incentive that attracts visitors to sign up to your email list. You can accomplish this via:
- An email autoresponder series
- A video series
- A webinar
Email autoresponders and a video series are excellent communication vehicles.
These communications are critical seeing the goal is to convert a visitor from someone who is “interested” up to a motivated buyer.
These communications will also help you build and maintain a lasting relationship with your audience.
Webinars are also a superb way to establish yourself as a business expert of choice while building trust between your audience and you.
If your revenue target is to generate an income of $1,000,000 per year, this amounts to $83,000 per month.
A great way to achieve your income goal is for you to create a 90-day transformation package.
For example, if your package is sold for $5,000, you’ll only need to sell 16 of them each month in order to reach your goal.
If done the right way, your automated sales system will generate a reliable stream of income for you, month after month and year after year.
Automating the Delivery of Your Package
Did you know you can package your expertise and deliver it to your clients in an automated fashion, saving you loads of time and effort, and best of all, maximizing your revenue?
Well in fact you can, and here’s how:
The easiest way to do this is via a membership website.
The best way for you to do this is to turn your business expertise into an online teaching course that you make available in lesson form.
You then post your ‘password protected lessons’ at predesignated times onto the ‘membership’ only portion of your website, which is available only to clients who have prepaid you for this content.
Prior to going this route, you’ll have to decide on an ideal format to use with your material.
For instance, will your lessons be available in the form of:
- Videos?
- Webinars?
- Podcasts?
Or will it be made available in all of the above forms?
An ideal length of time for an online business consulting course is12 weeks.
When you break your course down into 12 parts, you upload (or give access to) one new lesson each week for 12-weeks.
This type of set-up can easily be managed and administered also through email, or as we previously talked about, a membership site.
Keep in mind it’s important you organize and schedule your lessons in a way that progressively builds upon each previous lesson.
In the beginning when everything is being set-up, is when you’ll invest a great deal of time and effort, but once your everything is up and running, you’ll be able to sit back and concentrate for the most part on overseeing and administrating your business.
The good news is, you will have an automated, hands-off income stream.
This will leave you with the time and energy to concentrate on building other areas of your business into profit centers, or free you up to spend more time with family and friends.
Step 6 – Ensure the Growth of Your Business by Following These Steps
Don’t Focus on Acquiring a Large Audience
Having a large social media audience in not a prerequisite for success, by any means. Numerous others have poured a great deal of time and resources attempting to build a larger and larger list, only to discover they never achieve the level of fame and success as the folks they are following do.
From a practical standpoint, those who are well-known will tell you, the best way to grow your list of followers is to follow the steps as laid out in this report. The things you are learning here are the steps that lead to success.
The trick is to acquire a solid, core audience and then to be highly engaged with them, which will result in them spreading around the word about you.
If you are seen as someone who cares… your audience will share!
It won’t be long before you’re the steady growth of your audience takes on a life of its own, and the number of your followers begin to soar.
Here’s the key:
Concentrate on attracting and engaging with twenty people who have access to thousands, if not millions.
Be Grounded and Stay Down to Earth
There are far too many consultants and coaches who are concerned about ‘how they look to their audience’. This is the case because if they believe if they don’t come across as someone who stands head and shoulders over their audience, they won’t be taken seriously… That’s a fallacy!
That may have been the case years ago, but it certainly isn’t anymore. Folks today respond and warm up to those who come across as informal and warm. Best to be one of the guys… or girls.
Trust Your Instincts and Go with Them
Gathering and analyzing collected data can definitely help and guide you.
However, if you only rely on it or hide behind it, you will find yourself tripping up by coming across as distant to members of your audience.
People are emotional creatures, and it’s best you reach out to them as such.
When it’s all said and done, it’s best you structure your marketing, sales, and service that taps into, and plucks the emotions of your followers. Only after doing this should you then look at any data you may have to see if you are on the right track.
Step 7 – Create a Sales Funnel Your Audience Will Respond To
Now that you know how to package your services as well as market them, here are additional steps you can follow that will help you create a sales funnel that promotes and sells your services.
Although sales funnels can be complicated and are an investment of your time, you’ll be happy to know that once they are set up – they run and serve your business like a well-oiled machine, making them a valuable and worth-while undertaking.
What Is a Sales Funnel?
A sales funnel is much like a travel documentary shown to people who want to travel. The purpose behind it is to excite viewers and sell them a vacation package at the end of the presentation.
It’s much like venturing out on an exciting voyage you take your online visitors on, whereby at the end, they want to purchase your products or services.
The starting point on the voyage should always be the offer of free content,while the destination is your paid offer that a subscriber can purchase.
Your goal should always be to provide your prospects with an enormous amount of value in each and every step of your sales funnel.
When applied successfully, you can expect recipients to become dedicated and loyal fans of yours, who will faithfully spread the word around about how awesome you are!
You Start Off by Building Awareness
Your goal at the beginning of this process should be centered around a leading problem your prospects deal with in their business on an ongoing basis.
The trick at this stage is to not reveal the solution – but to only hint at the answer to the problem while you explain and expand upon the benefits they will receive once they implement it.
You can achieve this by educating, inspiring and even entertaining your audience, and deliver it in the form of:
- Blog posts (these go right at the top of your list)
- Social media posts (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest)
- Podcast interviews
- Videos
It’s important you remember, that whatever content you choose to create at this beginning step, should ideally relate to the lead magnet you are offering your prospects as a free gift in exchange for their email address.
Create Your Free (lead magnet) Gift
With your first step completed, it’s time to ask your audience to commit to you on a marginally deeper level.
You do this by creating an irresistible lead magnet that you give away as a free gift that you give the members of your audience in exchange for their email address.
In order to be effective, it’s imperative your lead magnet solve a specific problem your clients struggle with on an ongoing basis.
Tip: Be sure you emphasize what makes you and your solution unique (and subsequently irresistible) to your audience.
What this means is, don’t hold back on your best tips, tricks and how-to’s on solving this problem.
Be careful… the solution in your lead magnet must deliver the solution in a consumable format. With this in mind, ask yourself:
“What is the ONE benefit my clients will receive immediately after implementing my lead magnet?”
Another critical aspect of your lead magnet should be that it must be available in a consumable format. Also known as Low Ticket Products which can be free or small fee.
Simply put, your lead magnet should be something your prospect reads, listens or watches it and then can immediately apply, i.e. implement your solution in less than an hour.
Here are some useful lead magnet formats which are ideal:
- Checklists
- Cheat sheets
- Swipe files
- Scripts
- Infographics
- Audios
- Videos
Step 8 – Drive Traffic to your lead magnet
One way you can do this is too mention your lead magnet in all of your free content (step 1), and then insert a links on your landing page while encouraging your traffic and online connections to opt in.
Promote Your Free Giveaway
If you want to convert your subscribers into purchasers then it’s imperative you be reminded that your lead magnet… not provide the complete solution to the problem.
In other words, your lead magnet must be helpful and engaging, yet not disclose the entire solution.
This leads us to your next step, which is making your lead magnet strongly related to your free content from the first step, i.e. building awareness.
Your initial offer should be deeply discounted (think less than $50), making it difficult to pass up by your new subscribers.
This should be showcased as a one-time only offer you make available on your thank you page, as soon as someone opt-ins to your email list.
Some will buy and some won’t. That’s to be expected.
The purpose behind your introductory offer is not to necessarily turn it into a revenue generator, but to rather have it accomplish the following three objectives:
- Recoup FB ad investment.
- Make the first sale (confidence booster for you the coach).
- Increase the possibility of a repeat sale (if prospect has bought once, they are more likely to buy again).
When you send your thank you page to someone who has just subscribed to your list, here are 6 introductory offers you can include in your message, and make available.
- A module from your digital course
- A month’s trial in your membership community
- A no-charge coaching or consulting call
- A video or an audio course
- A paid challenge (Facebook group challenge that you offer as an intro offer)
- A website audit.
The final step for you to take involves:
Step 9 – Sell Your Core Offer / Coaching Package
Your core offer is your showcased service or program that in practice is your branded signature.
In order for it, and you to be considered the expert of choice among your followers and prospects…
Your core offer must provide a totally thorough (100%) solution for your clients.
Here are eight suggestions you can consider as an ideal core product.
- Coaching or mentorship program
- A high-level mastermind event.
- Tickets to a live event
- Certification Program
- Membership Community
- Done for your services (if you are a service provider)
- Physical product
- Group coaching program
There are several ways in which you can promote and sell your core offer:
- Emails to your list
- A dedicated sales page
- Phone consulting or discovery calls
- Live webinars (these convert extremely well)
Conclusion
There you have it. You now have a proven system for growing your online coaching business. By leveraging automation and technology, you can enjoy rapid growth while delivering incredible results for your clients. If you’re considering starting a coaching business, or want to take your existing coaching business online and scale it, then this guide is for you. We’ll walk you through the key steps you need to take to get started, including how to create your coaching offering and package it for success. If you need help and guidance feel free to get in touch.
Digital Business Coach | Web Revenue Strategist | Award-Winning IT Consultant | Author
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With over 18 years of industry experience in business and personal development, I’ve successfully been working with coaches, consultants and authors set up the right systems and implement strategic content strategies to start, grow and scale their businesses online with automation, digital products and services. (To work with Jatinder – click here)