Read this step-by-step guide on how to start and grow a successful online coaching business from scratch in a quick time.
It is possible you are about to get accredited as a professional or already you are with the qualification as a coach.
Also, you may have moved from one field of coaching to the other – management coach, life coach, business coach, or more.
Whatever your case is, you are in the right place.
Just before we begin, let me highlight some reasons why people start a private online coaching business.
- The coaching business is one of the online businesses that pay.
- You get fulfilled seeing yourself helping others achieve their dreams.
- It gives you an opportunity to become a boss of yourself.
I wrote this article from my own experiences as a coach for entrepreneurs. So, I want to help you answer some key questions that may go through your head right now.
How do I start a private online coaching business?
Another goal with this article is to see you become successful as a coach both in your personal and professional life.
How To Start An Online Coaching Business
1. Understand What It Entails
Now that you want to become a coach, do you have what it takes to withstand the heat and pressure that comes with it?
I am not here to discourage you but to restore hope and bring victory to your coaching business.
So, journey with me.
Let me start by asking the most important questions:
- Why do you want to start the coaching business?”
- What has inspired you to want to learn how to become a coach?
- You may think these questions don’t matter since you have the zeal.
Yes, you are right. But zeal without knowledge is destruction, and work without direction is a failure.
So, I will want you to ponder on the questions above and even pen down your reasons.
To serve as inspiration, here are a few of the many reasons people start an online coaching business.
Few Reasons People Become Coaches
- Coaching allows for your input in the lives and businesses of people.
- It forces you to improve yourself, knowing people look up to you.
- It gives you the platform to maximize your God’s given potential.
- Gives you the independence you have always wanted.
- To serve humanity with your time, energy, and resources.
Now, I don’t want you to just copy and paste but to check if this is what you are called to do.
The primary desire of every successful life or business coach I know is to help their clients reach their dreams.
When you commit to this goal and work towards it, money, fame, and all other good things, then follow as rewards.
2. Sell Your Services To Become A Coach
This is one key aspect of your business that needs both your time and money before you can move forward.
You need to enjoy reaching out to people and discussing your service and how it will help them achieve their goals.
Most coaches don’t like this part of the business. All they wanted was to be at the end part (coaching session) of the business.
But it doesn’t work that way. To become a successful life or business coach, you must learn how to sell your services.
You must be ready to promote your business via telephone calls, physical conversations, presentations, and group meetings.
And each of these opportunities wouldn’t come your way on the platter of Gold. You must be ready to go in search of them.
When looking out for people to onboard as clients, check for these three qualities:
- They are interested in personal and business growth
- Willingness to sit and learn from a coach.
- Readiness to put in the time to achieve their goals.
Also, while marketing your services, it is important to understand clients’ needs. You need to know what works on them:
- Do they prefer summaries to details?
- Are they interested in testimonials than efforts?
- Believe more in websites than social media pages?
- Do they prefer email, phone calls, or video conferences?
Get a professional website for your coaching services in 10 days or less.
3. Present Your Coaching Offer Excellently
What effect does this have when you want to start an online coaching business?
It allows you to refine everything you say and position you as an expert in the field.
Below are three tips for presenting your offer.
- Be Clear When You Speak On Phone:
How do you sound on the phone? Do you sound annoyed by incoming calls? Or do you sound interested in new numbers?
When your phone rings, please clear your head before picking up the call. If you are busy and don’t want to be distracted, please don’t pick.
One of the worst mistakes coaches make is by answering a call right away from sleep.
I have had terrible experiences with this.
So, what I did was, once it was time to sleep at night or even take a rest in the afternoon, I switch off the phone.
It is better than silencing the phone and the caller thinks you are the one not picking up.
Also, on speaking clearly, do I need to tell you to use simple words?
Please avoid industry words and use common terms that the everyday man can understand.
- Be Bold When You Speak With Clients:
The only reason someone will call you is that he/she thinks you are the best for the job. Please, don’t spoil this belief with a bad first impression.
So, how do you go about it?
First, pick up the call and ask the caller to introduce himself, and then you follow.
Pay complete attention and repeat the key highlight of what he has said to be sure you are not missing any point.
This affirms to the potential client (caller) that you understood him well.
- Present Your Offer As Quick As Possible
You need to give a client an imaginary picture of what he stands to gain from a coaching session with you.
While presenting your offer, you must answer this key before they even ask.
What specific problems will I be solving in this coaching session?
If your coaching business requires clients’ verification, let them know.
In presenting your coaching offer, you want your clients to choose quickly what they want.
Don’t speak too much, as that may lead to information overload.
Example Of A Good Coaching Offer
So, a client calls you and said,
“I need your service as a business coach. What is involved?
You can reply (Template):
When you sign up for my coaching service, we meet once a week for two hours each.
But before begin, I would like to meet with you (physical or virtual) to discuss what your challenges in business are and what goals you set out to achieve.
After the meeting, I will email you the program outline, process, and dates of each session.
4. Prepare Your Contract Agreement
In learning how to start an online coaching business, we have discussed how to sell your services and present your offer.
When you both agree on the contract, send a document containing what the coaching entails so you can be sure the clients understand it better.
Here are three reasons it is important to send a contract agreement:
- You and your clients become clear about what to expect from each end.
- Both of you have a reference point in case you need to clarify anything tomorrow.
- It tells your clients you understand their needs and know what to do.
Let’s see the best way to arrange your contract agreement for a professional look.
- Purpose:
In this section, you showcase the depth of your understanding of the client’s needs and explain WHY you are meeting and what goals you want to achieve.
- Process
Here is your chance to explain how you will work with the client and the expected learning outcome with each coaching session. Also, include your meeting schedule.
- Payment:
This section includes all the costs related to the coaching session. It is very important you state everything so your client doesn’t feel surprised by any charges.
You can always add more information you know it’s necessary.
5. Take Good Care Of Yourself
Most coaches, in the desire to become successful, ignore their health. Years down the line, they burn out and can no longer deliver.
If you are not physically and mentally sound, your clients will leave and move to the next available coach.
Because coaching is the only business where you are the product or service you are selling.
Don’t allow your good intentions of helping others to hurt you. So, take care of yourself.
Work-Life balance is crucial if you must become successful with an online coaching business.
If you don’t work towards it, you will struggle with time, energy, and resources. You will become busy with no concrete results.
So, how do you ensure you strike the balance between work and life? The solution is to become more self-aware.
Self-awareness is understanding your current state. It is identifying your strength and weakness at a particular time.
This way, you understand what is wrong and know how to rectify it.
6. Network With Other Coaches
A life coach will most likely not see an executive coach as a competitor because they serve a different audience.
An online business coach also will not see a fitness coach as a competitor.
The wisdom here is to network more with coaches who serve different audiences from you.
This way, your clients may need their service someday and theirs may need yours
Does this mean you should neglect other coaches from the same niche?
No! But building relationships with coaches from different a niche pays in the best interest.
Also as a coach, one thing I like to consider when networking is location.
As a business coach, I enjoy networking with people outside my geographical region. Even best, outside the country.
The reason is that it allows me to learn more about a different culture, which is good for my coaching business.
Also, it exposes me to opportunities, especially speaking gigs via referral.
A third reason you need to network is that it serves as a support in days of isolation or loneliness.
Once you start an online coaching business, you will feel isolated.
This is unlike when you have a job where you go to work daily and meet with colleagues.
So, at any point you feel isolated, you can always reach out to other coaches who can be of support and comfort.
Below are five questions you must ask yourself before networking:
- What are my biggest challenges in starting a coaching business?
- What qualities do I see and would want to emulate from these coaches?
- What can I offer to show my support to other coaches?
I encourage you to search for professional coaching bodies and explore their networks.
You will find someone who shares the same value as you.
7. Protect Your Clients’ Privacy
Whatever starts in Rome, ends in Rome.
This is what I say to my clients at the beginning of every coaching session.
It affirms that whatever he/she shares with me remains with just both of us.
In your coaching periods, your clients will share with you important information like:
- Their fears and anxieties.
- Things they have done,
- Happening in their lives, and many more…
It becomes your duty to keep this information private and the materials they share confidential.
To make this work, do:
- Sign strict confidentiality agreements with your clients.
- Keep to the highest personal and professional standards.
- Maintain boundaries from the start to the end of your meetings.
And if for any good reason, you need to break through these rules, then get permission from your clients.
Even with permission, don’t disclose their identity to the public–only refer to their story.
7 Tips To Become A Successful Online Coach
- Build Structure and Systems:
Soon, you will start an online coaching business working from home.
While this may sound cool as opposed to taking instructions from a boss or transporting to a location daily, there are downsides to it.
One is overeating, socializing, or sleeping during work hours.
What you need is a structure that prioritizes what is best over what is good. That guides you on what to do and what to ignore.
- Manage Your Time and Energy:
I have seen business owners who want to do everything all by themselves.
They are the ones managing their website, handling social media pages, setting up email marketing campaigns, invoicing, and onboarding.
Please learn to outsource or delegate so you can focus more on making your clients happy.
If you don’t learn this, you will feel overwhelmed and burn out soon. You will need to work within your energy limit to be productive.
- Set SMART Goals:
Publishing this article on how to start an online coaching business is an example of a SMART goal.
Because I never had the intention of writing, editing, and publishing on the same day.
All I needed to do was break down the big idea into smaller ones with timelines.
- Prepare Before You Start
Preparation, they say, is a key to success. In business and life, you can only go as far as your preparation can take you.
Don’t wait until you have clients calling before you put structures in place. Don’t wait until time for a coaching session before you read your client’s profile.
I like to keep it simple by assigning one major task per day. This way, I can prepare myself.
- Be Serious With Business
A common misconception is that only products businesses need financial management.
No! Even service businesses need it. It is one of the realities of being your own boss.
Register your business and operate as one rather than a hobby. Also, send out invoices to clients when due or hire an accountant where need be.
About operating as a business, you can choose to do so as a sole-proprietorship or limited company.
The difference is this:
In a sole proprietorship, you have full control of the operations of the business.
If your business ever goes into debt or damages, you may have to pay back with your personal assets like investments, houses, cars, and more.
As a limited company, you have employees, in this case, you. To this effect, your company’s property is not yours but the company’s.
And if the company ever goes into debt, it will not affect your personal assets.
- Celebrate Yourself
The coaching business requires constant meetings with clients. While these duties can be exciting and fulfilling, they can be stressful and tiring.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Out of your busy schedules, make room for fun.
Pay yourself a sales bonus for the excellent deal you just closed. Take time off to connect also with your family.
You also need coaching.
Final Thoughts On How To Start An Online Coaching Business
The coaching business, like every other online business pays if only you will start now.
Here are a few tips you should not forget:
- Look at the business through the eyes of your clients so you can see things from their view.
- Make sure every coaching session you have with a client delivers value.
- Always take care of yourself by eating healthy food, exercising, and taking time off to rest.
Start an online coaching business today and become the successful coach you already are.
