So you are a new coach (congrats) and are good at your superpowers but somewhere you also know this isn’t enough to get clients.
Because clients doesn’t come knocking on the doors right?
I can relate to it becuase when I first learned web design and built my website I waited for clients to come but 6 months passed by and no one really came!
I felt low and devastated,
But then I started googling and learning “How to get clients online” just like you!
So in this post, I am gonna share few strategies that I learnt over time that helped me get clients.
It can help you too to get your first (or more) clients within the next 30 days so bear with me till the end.
Here are some ways to get more coaching clients online:
1. Build An Audience
Your ideal clients are all out there on different social media platforms and all you need to do is to find them and attract them with your content.
You’ll need to build your audience or aka become an influencer in your particular field of expertise by sharing valuable content on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram.
How do you do that?
By engaging on others post, posting valuable content, creating engaging, powerful and helpful content.
You need to get them a taste of your service so that they can trust and buy from you.
How to choose perfect platform for you?
If your audience like to consume video content use TikTok or IG.
If your ideal clients are professional join linkedin
If you clients are regular people join Facebook and different facebook groups out there, facebook has groups for almost anything
Next step?
Build a genuine connection by reaching out to them via DMs, cold messaging or taking to people who engaged with your content.
You can use this script as well from my coaching program, its free: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17G7Sg2GiLFM0HK356yhGx4tjIc70Y1vHHo0HimGiR7c/edit?usp=sharing (make sure to make a copy for yourself)
Also don’t forget to ask problems of your ideal clients and what they want to hear from you or the content they need to consume.
And there you go you have a tribe that trust in you and can become your paying clients.
Ideally it takes 3-6 months to convey a cold audience into hot ready to buy clients with your content and relationship so this method is not fast but works for long term and sustainable. But if you are lucky you might get a few clients just by using that script and cold messaging.
2. Create your exact ideal client avatar
If you are not sure who is your ideal clients are then you can ask a few questions to yourself. For example, my ideal clients are new coaches who want a solid and highly converting website or coaches who wants to learn marketing to market their services and get clients online.
These are some of questions that you might wanna ask:
- Who is your audience?
- What are their internal and external struggles
- What keeps them up at night
- What are their burning desires
- How can you help them
- What information do they need from you in order to buy from you
- What platform do they use?
- What type of content do they consume I.e. video, text, images etc
3. Spend more Time Marketing Yourself
Yes, before you start serving your clients make sure your marketing plan is ready.
You are your own boss so its upto you to find clients and then serve them. As a business owner you need to wear multiple hats at first. Your marketing and clients services time should be 50:50 %, you can imbalance this equation if you want to get clients consistently.
There are basically two types of marketing medium:
A) Paid: this consists of running ads to your website or service page. The good thing about paid advertising is, it’s a pay and play method. You can get clients fast, and in matter of few you can have 100s of leads generated by spending in ads but as a beginner I won’t suggest you to run ads if you have a limited budget.
B) Organic: organic marketing consist of social media and content marketing. In this type of marketing you need to post content on social media and build your audience, you can also use cold outreach and content marketing such as google SEO to acquire clients like I do. One of the best thing about organic marketing is that it is suitable for beginner coaches with limited budget but plenty of time. the bad side? It takes time and patience to see results and if done wrong you might waste few months of your efforts as well. But anyway that happens with paid advertise too, you need to hit and trial in both cases.
However, you need to be cautious since either path you take it could take some time to see the results you desire.
4. Create engaging and useful Content that solves their small problems
Engaging content can help you achieve two major goals: sales and create influence.
Since you are a coach you might have plenty of ideas for content related to your area of expertise. Just like I have in marketing and web design. So, I create engaging content on social media and blogs as well that solves my ideal clients problems.
For example, if you’re a mindfulness coach, you can create short videos educating about things like mental health, mindfulness or work/life balance.
Let me list some of the popular types of content you can create on social media:
- Images
- Short videos
- Written posts, articles, guides, etc.
- Ebooks
- Images
- Videos
- Live video
- Infographics
5. Spend Time Engaging With your ideal clients Online
Now that you have figured out who your ideal clients is and where do they hangout its time to engage with them by liking and commenting on their posts.
You can also provide value in comments and help them without expecting anything in return, they might not buy from you but someone else reading your comment might buy.
Did you know, I got my first ever web design client by engaging on other peoples post and offering free value in comments on a Facebook post in a coaches group.
Social media is for socialising first and If you are social and good at it eventually it can turn into a sales machine.
The more you engage with people who are interested in things similar to your business or brand, the more people will start to follow and resonate with your message and services.
Simply the goals is to get to the top of mind with your ideal clients.
6. Use Podcasting
I can understand, getting noticed on social media is pretty challenging. Podcasting can be helpful when your goal is to stand out.
Podcasting is the trendiest thing right now in the market, consider radio FM reborn.
There are also breed of people that don’t like to consume video content or use social media much like me but what they like is chill on a sofa and listen to a good podcast, or while exercising, commute or drive.
Yes these kinda people exist and they consume little visual content so podcasting is another solid option for you.
The good thing is there is little to no completion for coaches in podcasting and requires almost no new equipment.
You can start sharing your knowledge from inside of your car using your phone’s mic and become a podcaster, its amazing if you are a camera shy or can’t produce video content.
You can use free app such as anchor.fm to distribute your podcasts to all major platforms such as google, apple and Spotify.
Do you know some of the leading international coaches use podcasting to grow their sales and audience?
There’s no reason you should miss out on podcasting.
You can either create a podcast, or be a guest on other podcasts to help you get exposed to more people and eventually get clients.
7. Clubhouse
Clubhouse is another great platform to be seen by people, there are almost every kind of clubs on clubs where you can share what you know and what you do in front of thousands of people.
If you’re not sure what to share on clubhouse you can share your stories. I am sure you’ve some pretty amazing stories about how you helped your clients succeed.
All you need to do is getting on Clubhouse and practicing speaking in front of people.
Clubhouse gives you the opportunity to tell your story or what works best to get new clients or build amazing relationships with thousand of cool people around the world.
8. Blogging
Blogging is another great source for getting free leads from google, its free but takes time and patience. You can get clients when your articles rank on first page of google search.
Like if someone searches “How to be more mindful at vacation” and you have written article on that you have a chance that your article get shown on google and they land on your website and become your client.
If you are new coach you probably won’t have a website (I build websites) and need a new one because your can’t do blogging without your own website.
If you already have one you can start blogging from today and see results in 3-6 months if you post 2 articles a week consistently ranging between 2000-4000 words on topics that people search on google.
Need an awesome website just visit my contact page and get in touch.
9. Engage In Facebook Groups and create your own fb group
I told you earlier that I got my first client via Facebook that was half of the story.
Actually I got my first clients in a coaches group that I joined on Facebook.
What did I do?
I simply joined a lot of coaches group, asked questions, provided my valuable feedback on their posts such as website they created and needed someone for review.
I also posted valuable posts that told them what to do and what not to do on your website.
This way I got tons of enquires in my DMs I was an authority there for web design related questions in couple of months and closed handful of clients.
You can similarly join such Facebook groups and start engaging there. Don’t sell just engage show your ideal clients that you are the one.
In fact, you can also create your Facebook group and invite people to join in and make sure to deliver value in your group or host live videos and post video/text content.
10. Use LinkedIn
You are a coach and you can’t ignore the professional platforms like Linkedin where over 760 million professionals have built their presence.
There are tons of professionals on the platform like employees, CEOs, brands, influencers, industry leaders, marketers, you name it.
If someone is on LinkedIn, they are already in the business or trying to establish one so this is a great environment to bring in professional clients.
Here’s what you can do to find clients on LinkedIn
- Get your profile to appear at the top of search results. For example, if you’re a life coach, your profile should show up at the top somewhere when someone searches for life coaching services on the linkedin.
- Make sure to fill out the bio and about section of your linkedin.
- Connect to at least 100 people those who are your ideal clients
- Post valuable content and engage with their too
- Reach out to them and introduce yourself
The more you connect with others, the more you’ll see the power of linkedin.
11. Create Videos
Videos are the future and present of web content, short form videos are definitely trending right now.
Also a face that Video drives engagement more than any other form of content.
Videos are easier to consume and digest and fastest way to get people, know like and trust you which is a crucial part of selling via social media.
Doesn’t matter what platform you use to acquire more clients, be sure to create high-quality videos that show the personal and professional side of you.
Need some ideas?
It would be a great idea to create a series of videos telling how your coaching programs are making an impact or adding value to your existing clients’ lives.
Take a look at one of my valuable video on Facebook:
12. Most Important: Start converstation
No matter what platform you choose you have to build relationships and that can only happen via conversation. “Conversation leads to conversion” simple as that.
Be it TikTok, linkedin, Instagram, Facebook, clubhouse each platform have DMs where you can reach out to people and talk to them.
Go and talk to them introduce yourself, its just like meeting bunch of new people everyday and networking from the comfort of your home.
Use My message script (make sure to make a copy and modify it): https://docs.google.com/document/d/17G7Sg2GiLFM0HK356yhGx4tjIc70Y1vHHo0HimGiR7c/edit?usp=sharing
Final conclusions
Now you know how to market your self as a coach and get new clients within next 30 days here are some tips to keep in mind before using any of the above methods.
Use only 2-3 methods as working on one platform is far better than being on every platform for undivided attention and success. So choose any of the steps wisely and according to what you like. Always trust in process. Some strategies like blogging and podcasting might take time to get results 1 month to 6 months depending on the commitment and efforts you put in.
P.S: Need an awesome coaching website that converts your visitors into paying clients? Just reach out to me by clicking on that contact button on top!
Thanks for reading, stay tuned for more such content!
Cheers
Him Singh