9 Tried and Tested Ways to Get Your First Coaching Client
As a coach, getting your first client is the most coveted moment. It is something that comes in your mind with the very idea of starting your own business.
But getting your first client will not happen just 5 minutes after you launch your coaching business. Being a coach, you need to be mindful of how you are serving your potential clients and whether you are ready to have your first client.
Here are 9 tried and tested tactics for getting your first coaching client:
Identify the Ideal Client For Your Coaching Business
The first and foremost step of getting your first coaching client is to identify your coaching niche. When you are sure of the exact service that you are going to provide as a coach, then it will be easier for you to come up with an action plan to get your first coaching client.
To have a well-defined niche and to find the client base that will need your coaching services, you need to ask yourself the following questions:
- Who can I help reach a highly desired outcome?
- Who will benefit from my services?
- Who will resonate with my story?
Once you have these questions answered, you can move forward to the next step of getting your first client.
Create Engaging Content
Provide engaging content to your audience through various content mediums will keep your audience engaged and make them keep coming back to you for more valuable information.
Here are the 3 most prominent content mediums you can use:
Blogs
One of the most common content creation medium is blogging. Create a blog on various topics around the services that you provide and the needs of your niche. Having a successful blog will help you with SEO and generating high traffic for your coaching website.
Videos
Video is the probably the most popular content medium. It is very easy to consume for the audience and helps in learning and spreading your message across easily. If you are a health coach, you can create videos on topics such as, "How I lost 5 kgs in 30 days!", "How to prepare healthy food at home easily", etc.
Podcasts
A new trend in the content creation industry, podcasts have suddenly become popular among people. Many people prefer podcasts as they can consume content while doing simple tasks and house chores. You can create your podcast as a coach and interview various famous health icons to take insights and tips from them for your audience.
Remember the more the audience engages with you the more exposure you will get and that will help you land your first client as a coach.
Host Events and Workshops
For getting people to recognize you and your coaching expertise, you need to put yourself on a stage where the prospective clients can notice your expertise clearly.
Putting yourself in front of a group of people and educating them positions you as an expert and makes it easy for people to see you as an expert. Share valuable content by solving the problems of your audience, and in no time, you will have your first client.
Organise your own event and advertise about it everywhere. The more the audience, the better the chances of converting a prospective client into an actual client. If you are a little nervous about running your own event you can start by becoming a speaker at an event that is already happening.
For example:
If you are a health coach you can organise a “101 Health Care Workshop” where you can share the basics of what benefits the human body and what habits can ruin your health.
Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is the act of writing content for your niche on another company’s platform. Guest blogging helps attract traffic to your website and increases your brand credibility and awareness. It also helps build relationships with peers in the segment you are blogging for.
Find writers within your niche and make sure you have your interests aligned. Do your research thoroughly and make sure that the company or the brand you are blogging for, as a guest blogger, has a following that can benefit you.
Some tips you can follow:
- Write a clear and concise author bio and include links which lead to your website (if permitted)
- End each post with a CTA and ask your reads for comments and feedback
- Promote your guest blog on your social network for more organic traffic.
Build Up Your Coaching Business Network
Building up a business network is imperative for any coach because it helps you look professional in what you do. You need to go out there and start marketing yourself to attract your first client.
Start with your friends, family, and people that you engage with regularly like your hairdresser. Communicate to them how you want to solve their problem. Once they are happy and satisfied with your services, you can ask them to spread out the word to their network and start offering something of value to those people.
Do not limit yourself only to your close friends, but start reaching out through platforms such as LinkedIn. Personalize your communications and make them feel you are genuinely interested in solving their problem.
After the first few weeks of initial correspondence, you might convert the audience into a client.
Engage With Your Email List
You have an audience on social media, some of those for your blog, and maybe a few of them are your email subscribers. All these people are your potential clients who you can help with your coaching.
You need to send newsletters to your email list, even if it is tiny. Once you get massive traffic, you will not be able to message every client personally. So, you need to make the best of this initial phase, where you can be as personal as you can with your clients.
Provide them educational tips, insights and various guides. Also, use this platform as an opportunity to explain and promote your services as a coach. Provide offers from time to time to lure the interested people in and convert them into your coaching clients.
Use Social Media Actively As a Coach
Use social media to build high engagement with your potential clients. You can make the best use of social media to target the specific audience who are interested in your coaching business.
You can use Instagram to post articles, tips and tricks, and the benefits of the services you provide. You can create engaging stories for your audience through polls, quizzes, and Q/A. This will help you understand your audience better, and then you can convert the audience into potential clients.
Make an interesting bio on Instagram that showcases who you are and what you do. Do not forget to add a link to your website in your Instagram bio.
Create Facebook Community Groups and help people solve their problem personally within the group. Such groups act as a channel between you and your audience for a better connection. It will also help you develop a strong relationship with your clients within a short time.
You can also be a guest on other coaches’ Facebook page and collaborate with them for mutual benefit. This will help you attract clients as you showcase your expertise while solving their problem.
If you are not confident about appearing as a guest on other pages, you can invite other coaches on your page and help your clients through them.
YouTube
Not everyone is going to read your blog or follow you on your social media. You need to make engaging content and to hook your audience, and you can do that by posting videos. Videos on YouTube can attract the clients, who find your content interesting to your website.
This will help gain traction when you are just starting out. Videos are engaging and can be watched on the go and will help you for reaching a larger audience and converting them into your clients.
Make sure that your videos are of high quality and invest in a good camera or editing software.
Offer Freebies
You can attract clients to your coaching business by offering them freebies. You can use this tactic almost on any platform, to attract customers and then use the opportunity to turn it into potential clients.
Keep your audience engaged by offering them a strong incentive and making them continue to your next session. For Example,
You can run a lottery where a select number of readers can win a free session.
Remember, free clients can pave the way to helping you get there but there is a limit of how much free work you can allow in your schedule.
For Example, Melyssa Griffin, a holistic business coach offers a free workbook when you sign up with her.
Advertise Your Coaching Business Through Google Ads
Another way of getting recognised in the coaching industry is by paid promotions. You can sign up for Google ads and make yourself visible on all relevant platforms. This helps you attract traffic and then convert leads into your coaching clients.
You can also go for pay per click advertising which includes Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads, Google AdWords, etc. It will help you connect with your specific client and drive more traffic to your website
Now Go Out and Get Your First Coaching Client
So, what are you waiting for?
Now that you know the tactics to get your first coaching clients, go and apply these in your coaching business, start building your credibility, increase your awareness, and you will have your first client in no time.
Credits - Nikita Gupta