How to Get Your First Paying Coaching Clients

If you’re brand new to coaching and have no idea how to get those first couple of clients, you’re in the right place.

I’m going to give you a simple process about how to get the word out about your brand new business and how to get the right clients coming in through your door.

The end result will be a sustainable coaching business where you can get clients on demand.

I still remember when I started my coaching business. I was lost and confused about what first steps I should be taking to get people in the door. Should I go to networking events? Should I do this? Should I create my own website? There were just so many things and options.

Online experts told me that I should start with this or start with that. I spread myself all over the place. I was throwing things against the wall and trying to see what would stick. It took me a little over a month to get my first paying client.

In following the simple system that will go through, it’s not going to take as long for you. I want you to learn from my mistakes and have a concrete plan about how to actually go out there and land your first couple clients fast.

The one key mistake that I made, and see it over and over again with new coaches, is following the top coaches in your niche and trying to replicate what worked for them.

I’m here to tell you that you need to find your unique approach. Copying somebody else’s process or system may get you a few clients, but it’s not going to be sustainable long term.

I wouldn’t take that approach of trying to copy what somebody else has done to build your coaching business, because each person is unique. What worked for somebody else isn’t necessarily going to be a great fit for you.

And this is really something that I did as well, especially in those first six months in my coaching business. But I learned quickly that what worked for somebody else doesn’t necessarily fit my personality, my background, my approach, and what I really love. You want to build kind of a coaching business that really fits your unique personality and what you love doing every single day.

You’re going to get plenty of paying clients that will want to work with you. You want to make sure that those people fit with who you really want to work with.

But along the way, you’re going to have to do that business development. So if you don’t actually enjoy doing that work, along with helping clients achieve their goals, your business is going to suffer.

It’s going to become more of a burden more than anything else. With my simple system, you’ll get a better idea of how you could potentially discover your unique client acquisition approach and those different avenues for finding the right clients.

The first task of your coaching business is to sit down and identify what specific audience you want to go out there and work with on a day to day basis. And what tangible result are you going to be able to deliver that they want the most?

As you’re starting out, this might not make a lot of sense. It might sound counterintuitive because you might go out there and say “I want to help as many people as possible. I don’t want to limit my opportunities by narrowing down my audience.”

But there’s really a few reasons why this is really helpful because especially in the early going, you’re going to be overwhelmed by trying to pitch to absolutely everybody and trying to give a lot of promises about what you can deliver.

It’s going to help you because you can narrow down your audience. You can then spend the time and effort in starting conversations with them. Getting to know them really well and becoming aware of what tangible results they want.

Why is focusing on a tangible result important?

I’ve seen coaches go out there all the time talking about their key promise of higher confidence or more fulfillment in their life. But what people hire coaches to do is to get those tangible results.

What does a tangible result mean? It means the key thing that your audience is really looking for, that they can put some value behind. You can think about it in three key ways or three key buckets. Number one is wealth. This goes along with their career or business. You’re trying to get them a new fulfilling job, or with entrepreneurs, moving them from six figures to seven. Something that’s really tangible that kind of connects to their wealth, their bank accounts.

These end goals that are the end results of your coaching make it easy for your prospects to hire you. They can put a tangible value to the hiring decision since you’re speaking to a specific benefit versus something like confidence or higher confidence, which isn’t as easy to put a specific number behind. So that first bucket is wealth.

The second one is relationships. So for your audience, it might be improving their marriage. It might be finding the right partner if you’re a dating coach. It might be improving their overall relationships in terms of friendships and things like that. That’s really what they’re keenly aware of. Obviously relationships are a big part of that.

The third thing is their health or wellbeing, like can you help them lose weight if you’re a weight loss coach. If you’re a nutrition coach how can you further improve what they’re already doing and establish a plan there?

Thinking about those three key buckets and those tangible goals that are out there will establish your value as a coach. It’s really going to help with your marketing as you’re talking about the key benefits that you can help them achieve. Instead of talking about what you’re actually going to do as a coach.

As a key end consumer, that’s what people are concerned about is what key benefits can you, as a coach, help them deliver. How can we get them to that end goal faster than they could themselves and how can they attach some level of value to that?

If you can help them achieve their end goal really quickly, that’s going to really translate into their own mind as an investment worth making. And this is where I should plunk down a significant amount of money and time to get to that level and really hire a coach to go out and do that.

Let’s specify an audience. Get to that key tangible benefit that they’re looking for. As you’re first starting out, don’t worry that the audience you first target is the one you will have to target forever. It’s an evolving process. You can get more specific, you can broaden out over time. By being more specific, you’ll help yourself as you can go from a complete beginner to more of an expert really quickly. Because you can go out there and say this is a specific audience that I work with.

You’re going to attract those kinds of people. You’re going to start getting them results. You’re going to tally up those testimonials for that specific audience. That’s going to really help you attract more and more people within that smaller group. And you’re really going to build up some word of mouth. You’re going to build up referrals and you can go out there and talk about how you’re an expert within that audience by showing your results.

By being more specific you save time, get more money in the door, and build up your credibility. As you get more and more success, you can broaden out your audience or you’ll evolve that audience over time.

Now that you have identified your specific audience and the tangible benefit they want the most, let’s go out there and tell the world about our coaching business. Let’s not be shy about it. Go out to your network, family & friends, and let them know that we’ve just started a coaching business. Let them know who you’re focused on serving. Mention the tangible benefit that you’re going to help them achieve. Get the word out because nobody’s going to start reaching out to you. If you create a website and sit there and wait for people to come to you, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.

You want to let everybody know about what you’re doing, have some excitement about that. One of the best things that you can do is start telling some stories around your coaching. Like, what is your specific reason for getting into coaching?

You may have started out your coaching business because you’ve had the same pain points that your audience has right now. You’ve gone through a transformation in your own life and you want to help out people just like you and getting over some of those things that you really dealt with in your own life. So as you go out there and talk to your audience, share some of those vulnerable stories about why you got into coaching and why you’re creating this business and why you want to impact people that are just like you. That’s really important.

In sharing a little bit more about yourself, your family and friends might not even realize the things that you have gone through. It’s really going to help them spread the word about you. By being more specific, it helps you by not looking like a beginner coach, you’re looking more and more like a specialist.

Even if you don’t have somebody specifically within your immediate network that fits your specific audience, there is probably someone that is among the friends of your friends or the family of your family.

By being more specific about who you want to approach, you make it a lot easier for your network to refer business to you.

They’re not just saying here’s this newbie coach and they’re looking for anyone to work with them. You’re kind of speaking their language. And again, by sharing your story, you’re going to help people resonate with you. You’re going to share the same things that they’ve been through in your past.

You’ve been able to transform your own life and that’s going to give them confidence. If you’ve been able to do it in your own life, that’s your first testimonial.

One of the key things that I see time and time again with new coaches is they create a fancy website. They might put out a post on Facebook or Instagram, and they just wait for people to start contacting them. And when that happens and they don’t get a lot of response, they get worried, they get depressed about where their coaching business is going and they lose a lot of that momentum. They start signing up for more certifications and courses because they think that the lack of people reaching out to them is a reflection that they don’t know enough to coach people. They would be wrong.

So that’s the third thing that I want to talk about is being proactive in terms of your outreach. So you’ve kind of started by doing that in terms of going out to your network, but where else does your specific audience kind of hang out?

How can you go out there every single day in starting those conversations? As a new coach, how can you start out by having as many conversations as possible?

If you’re having a lot of good conversations with your target audience, you’re getting to know them a little bit better, even if they don’t become a paid client for you. You’re getting to know your audience really well.

You’re getting to know what words and phrases that they’re using…those key benefits that they’re looking for…their pain points. With each conversation you’re kind of moving your business along. If you’re not getting those paid clients immediately this is going to help you get there really quickly, because as you further understand your audience, you’re going to start speaking their language.

You’re going to get on the same wavelength and that’s really going to improve your marketing, and that’s going to improve your outreach.

And you can always ask those people that aren’t ready to sign up with you right away, who else in their network might be a great conversation to have?

So you’ve got your specific audience, but one of the key things that you have to do is figure out where do they hang out the most online? What are those specific platforms that you want to be spending your time and maybe even your money in terms of online ads on? Is it Facebook? Is it Instagram? Is it LinkedIn? Is it YouTube? Is it Twitter? Is it something else?

Pick one platform where, you know, they’re always hanging out and you know that you can have those conversations really quickly.

It’s important that you’re not spreading yourself too thin, especially in the early going. You want to spark up those conversations and get to know your audience a little bit better. Again, what is the language that they’re using? Whether it’s the key benefits that they’re looking for, what are the pain points that they’re dealing with?

And then the final thing that I want to leave you with is how to close prospects. There is a lot of disagreement online about whether you should provide free coaching. What I would say is go out there and give a little bit of value and demonstrate your expertise. Especially in the early going as a new coach, you have to show what level of expertise you have and that you can get people moving in the right direction.

Many times in coaching you’re working with a lot of people that feel stuck and paralyzed in their current situation. So if you can have those conversations and give away some free resources that get them moving in the right direction and get them moving with some momentum. That’s not only going to build up their confidence and trust in you, but it’s also going to demonstrate your expertise.

You’re going to show that you actually know what you’re talking about. It’s going to help you from a personal perspective as well, because you’re going to have less imposter syndrome because you’re really going out there and helping people even before they hire you.

But again, think about that first step that you can get people moving in the right direction towards that tangible end benefit that they’re looking for. And think about building some resources, building some content on that specific platform that they hang out on the most, get them going in the right direction.

That’s going to build up confidence that you know what you’re talking about. That you can help them along the way and get them closer to them opening up their checkbook or opening up their wallet to actually pay you for your time and moving it in the right direction.