Can you make money in an online coaching business?

 Coaching is a big industry. The size and recent growth of the coaching industry encourages every type of coaching to be successful online.

Types of Coaching

The type of coaching you can offer depends on your training, specialty, interests and niche.

For example you can be a:

• Life coach – This type of coach focuses on their clients’ life decisions and self-fulfillment, which includes all aspects of their life: personal, professional, health and relationships.
• Personal coach – This can be a life/career coach, or personal coaching within an organization by a mentor or manager.
• Career coach – A career coach specializes in helping people who are searching for a job, looking to change careers or are moving back into the job market.
• Executive coach – This type of coach helps top-level management improve their decision making and leadership abilities. An executive coach has considerable experience in their field.
• Business coach - Business coaches guide people in their professional life. This type of coach helps business owners by guiding and supporting them, holding them accountable and encouraging their clients.
• Fitness coach – This type of coach focuses on the physical fitness, dieting, exercise, lifestyle and spirituality of their clients.
• Team Coach – These coaches specialize in coaching business teams. They help members within a business team work together smoothly and effectively.
• Sports coach – This is often what you think of when you think of a coach. These are the people who coach serious athletes to be successful. A sports coach knows the sport, motivates the player and builds the clients’ skills.
• Confidence coach – This type helps clients build their self-esteem and confidence, helping them learn what is holding them back.
• Parent coach – This highly-trained and knowledgeable professional’s main role is to provide support and guidance to parents and caregivers in the challenges of raising healthy, happy and successful children.

There are many types of coaching you can pursue. The niche you choose depends on your training, your goals and your passion.

How to Help Others

People seek the guidance of a coach for a variety of reasons. As a coach you must provide several ways to help your clients.

You might help clients in their work to recognize their goals, or change career focus. A coach helps clients build their confidence, move on from a divorce or solve relationship problems. As a coach you could guide clients on health issues like losing weight or getting healthier.

As a business coach, you help small- and medium-sized business owners with their sales, marketing, management, team building and the goals they have for their business growth.

A coach helps their client build confidence and strong self-esteem. They help clients move outside their comfort zone.

As a coach you will encourage, motivate and support your clients.

Coaches focus on the future of their clients. They advise and ask questions to help their clients tackle difficult issues both in their career and at home.

Other ways to help others:

• Stimulate better skills. Help your clients anticipate what they could become, how they can overcome self-defeating habits and insecurities.
• Help them manage their relationships and develop new skills and abilities.
• Help your clients build more effective ways to continue to improve.
• Stimulate their vision to think beyond their current situation and to clearly envision their future. Help them create a plan on how to get there.
• Help your clients grow through the changes they are facing. Help them reassess their life goals, change their lifestyle, get the training they need and find a new career option.
• Help them re-evaluate their financial needs and find the information they need to make intelligent decisions.
• Help clients move from stuck to growth.
• Help your clients deal with the attitudes and behaviors they need to change.

Coaches help others grow and change through guidance and accountability.

Making Money from Coaching

Helping others is your number one goal when you decide to become a coach. However, you want to be making money from your coaching, too. Here are some popular ways you can do this:

1. Offer one-on-one coaching. This is done through emails, over the phone or face-to-face. This is a billable hours for time service.
2. Offer group coaching. This is done in groups with ten or more people. It can be done in person or over Skype/teleconference/Google Hangouts.
3. Write and sell books/eBooks. Focus on a topic you get asked about often and sell it on your website, through Kindle and other sites on the web. Writing and selling your own eBooks will give you passive income.
4. Write and sell an eCourse. An eCourse you create on a particular subject can be created and sold as a daily, weekly or monthly eCourse.
5. Sell your own products and services. If you’re creative and great at coming up with new and innovative ideas, you can turn these ideas into something people are willing to buy.
6. Coach other coaches. If you already have a well-known, established coaching practice, you can offer your services training other coaches.
7. Deliver speeches. Get paid for speaking about you and your coaching industry.
8. Create and sell specialty training programs. Training others how to do something is a lucrative field.
9. Set up a membership site. This can include tutorials, videos, how-to tips or some other service you allow only members to see.
10. Supplement your online coaching with local seminars and workshops. Book a conference hall in a hotel or local college. Conduct a seminar or workshop.
11. Create and sell CDs and audiotapes. This can be anything from training to motivational quotes and stories.
12. Sell advertising space in your newsletter and on your website.
13. Get interviewed. A slot to host on a podcast, TV show or radio show can be a paid opportunity.
14. Create an affiliate program. Offer your coaching services or products through affiliates.
15. Provide broker services. If you are good at connecting people and services, act as a middleman to connect them. Charge a percentage or a set amount.
16. Sell affiliate products. Sign up to become an affiliate to sell products and services like software on your site. Sign up at places like Amazon, Home - ClickBank and many other sites.
17. Write articles on your niche for magazines, paid blogs and newspapers.
18. Build joint ventures or partnerships. This could be with other coaches or with a complementary service.
19. Teach a webinar course. Sell seats to a webinar that teaches your clients a specific task.
20. Create a funnel. Sell a low-cost item or service with a higher priced back-end or upsell product. For example, sell a five-minute session with an upsell of a 30-minute coaching session. Add higher priced items to your sales funnel for each level completed.

Your coaching business is more than just giving free advice. You can make money in a lot of different ways.

Attracting Clients

Making money online with your coaching business means you will need clients. Attracting those clients can be difficult, but with practice the process can become easier.

Step #1 – Know who your target market is

Narrow down your target market. Don’t try to get just any client. Choose a specific group or area of expertise to target. Shape your message to serve this specific segment. Talk about the specific benefits you offer that provides solutions to their challenges.

Examples of target markets:

• Realtors who are faced with a lot of competition in a slow market.
• Hair salon owners wanting to find a way to stand out among other salons or who are overwhelmed with their work.

Step #2 – Have confidence in your coaching service

Show you believe in your services and value your time in everything you say and do. Clients will see your value as well.

Step #3 – Connect with prospects

When talking to prospects, really listen and connect with them. Let them feel you understand and trust them. Take the time to let your prospective clients get to know you as a person. Become known as someone who is friendly, helpful and willing to go the extra mile.

Step #4 – Be where they gather

Go to the forums, meetings and social media outlets where your prospective clients are hanging out. Interact with them. Network with them at events.

Step #5 – Show yourself as the ‘expert’

Get your knowledge out among the crowd by answering questions and helping others in the places where your clients are gathering. Write articles and books on your niche. Use social media as a way to create a buzz around your coaching business. Use Twitter, Facebook and your own blog to help spread the word about your services.

Volunteer to speak at networking events and conferences to build your reputation as an expert. Ask for testimonials from current clients to build your authority. Form alliances with other coaches and people in your niche.

Step #6 – Ask for referrals

Ask your current and past clients for referrals. Everyone knows of a friend, colleague or family member who might be a good fit for your services.

Step #7 – Create a compelling marketing message

Your marketing message, tagline and elevator speech should grab the attention of prospects and make them want to call you.

Step #8 – Create your services package

Package your services, what you offer and what you know into irresistible programs and systems that make the prospective client take notice and want to work with you. You packages should be positioned so they sell themselves.

Step #9 – Create a marketing plan

Create a specific plan to help you reach your prospective clients. Don’t put all your eggs in the same basket. Use several different types of marketing.

Step #10 – Learn to close the sale

Once you have attracted your ideal client, you need to rope them in for the sale. Learn how to close the sale properly so you don’t scare them away or leave them hanging on what they should do next.

Attracting your ideal client gets easier the more you do it. Spending time in the right places and using the right marketing plan can help.

Marketing Ideas and Tips

To make money as a coach you need to market your business. These marketing tips and ideas will help guide you in your marketing efforts.

• Target a specific niche or group. Don’t send you marketing message to a general group. Specifically target the demographic you want to work with.
• Talk about your business everywhere. Network with prospective clients. Give speeches at conferences. Clearly articulate your value when talking about your business.
• Write about your business in blog posts, newsletters, magazines and newspapers. Send out a press release when you add a new service or you are just starting your business.
• Be active on social media. Participate by answering questions, providing helpful information and being authentic.
• Create a professional looking website. Include your services, testimonials and an about you page.
• Give away a free coaching session. This will bring in prospective clients who may go on to purchase a bigger package.
• Build a strong client list. Keep in contact with them, asking for referrals and testimonials.
• Send out a regular newsletter and update your blog regularly.
• Comment on other blogs and social media channels with relevant information.
• Get interviewed by a well-known person in your niche. Promote your coaching services during the interview.
• Create YouTube videos with helpful information. Include links to your coaching services.
• Include a link to your website on everything, including your email signature

Marketing is a necessity in any business. It is how clients will find you.

The Next Step

Making money online with your coaching business can be done in many ways. It’s about how you package yourself as an expert, the marketing plan you create to get the word out about your services and the different types of services and products you offer. Your next step is to decide on your market, plan out your marketing, determine how you are going to make money, and begin attracting clients.