How to Become a Life Coach Online: 7 Success Steps

Want to learn how to become a life coach online?

A life coaching business can be incredibly rewarding and fulfilling. 

But how do you start one successfully? 

Today, you get a step-by-step plan for how to start your own life coaching business, get your first paying clients, and quit your 9-5.

Ready to get started? Here we go.

Quick overview:

• The first step to becoming a life coach is to pick a niche and help clients get specific results. 
• In most cases, you don’t need a certification, as long as you have the right experience. 
• Start selling a three-month package that you price at $1,500.

What is life coaching?

Let’s start with the basics:

What is a life coach?

Life coaching is an umbrella term for coaches who help people improve and transform their lives in some way. 

And the life coaching industry is growing fast, too–it’s a billion-dollar industry. The average life coaching hourly rate is $100-$150.

Now, life coaches are not therapists. 

They don’t treat or diagnose mental health issues. Instead, you help your clients find solutions to problems and achieve their lifelong goals. 

Some of the coaching skills you need to become a great life coach are: 

• Communication skills: One of the most important coaching skills is communication – listening, being candid with your clients, and communicating what they need at that moment.
• Offering support: You also need to be able to support your client in the best way, whether that’s by just hearing them out or giving them tough love. Part of your job is to believe in your clients, even when they don’t see it themselves. 
• Setting boundaries: You need to learn how to set boundaries to be a great coach. Clearly communicate when you’re available to your clients and in what capacity. 

With that, let’s find out what it takes to become a life coach. 

7 steps to becoming a life coach

How do you become a life coach? 

Building a coaching business is relatively simple (even if it isn’t easy). This type of business can have a high profit margin and low risk, so you can do it on the side of your day job. 

To do so, you need the right steps. And that’s what we’ll look at here below. 

Step 1: Find your coaching niche

Becoming a life coach requires you to be clear on your niche. Instead of saying you “improve people’s lives,” you get them a specific result. Maybe you help them “find impactful careers” or “find a life partner without dating apps.”

There are plenty of niches to choose from, including: 

• Health coaching
• Career coaching 
• Executive coaching
• Financial coaching
• Relationship coaching
• Business coaching
• Mindset coaching
• Purpose coaching
• Parenting coaching
• Divorce coaching
• Marriage coaching
• Intimacy coaching
• Infertility coaching
• Grief coaching
• Conflict management coaching
• Mid-life coaching
• Retirement coaching
• Salary negotiation coaching
• Travel coaching
• Sports/fitness coaching
• Nutrition coaching
• ADHD coaching
• HBTQ coaching
• Academic coaching
• Coaching people to learn better/faster
• Memory coaching
• Pet training coaching
• Productivity/stress coaching
• Discipline coaching
• Organizational/decluttering coaching
• Personal development coaching
• Accountability coaching
• Communication coaching
• Personal finance coaching
• Habits coaching
• Success coaching
• Motivation coaching
• Creative writing coaching
• Performance coaching
• Yoga coaching
• Social skills coaching
• Goal-setting coaching
• Purpose/passion coaching
• Resilience coaching
• Creativity coaching
• Leadership coaching
• Coaching children
• Religious coaching
• Confidence coaching
• Personal style coaching
• Public speaking coaching
• Mindfulness and meditation coaching
• Reiki healing
• Skills coaching (helping people improve a specific skill)
• Language coaching
• Self-discovery coaching
• EFT coaching
• Life direction coaching
• Minimalism coaching

I go through different types of coaches here. 

To find your niche, you’ll want to find the sweet spot between what you know (your experiences or skills) and what people are willing to pay for. 

Do a quick Google search to see if someone is offering your services – in that case, that’s something people most likely WANT to pay for 

For example, my former student Emily was a Fortune 500 recruiter. Today, she is a career coach.

And Ruby used to be a matchmaker at companies like eHarmony. Now, she runs her own relationship coaching business. 

In this quick video, I share one sentence you can use to find your niche: 

Next, let’s look at what type of life coaching certification you need. 

Step 2: Get qualified as a life coach

There are no professional standards or educational requirements for life coaches. Becoming a life coach requires you to be in integrity (you need the right experience)–but you don’t need to be a certified coach.

However, you need to be able to help your clients get results. And for that, you need relevant experience. 

One caveat: A few niches require coaching certifications. (These are mainly mental health and health-related niches.) 

If you want to get certified, look for an established life coach certification program.

The life coach training program or course you choose should be approved by an organization that sets industry standards for life coaches. One such organization is the International Coaching Federation.

A few life coaching certification programs include: 

• iPEC Coach Training: iPEC is an ICF-accredited program that teaches you three stages of coaching mastery. The program costs $13,395.
• Coach U Coach Training: Coach U goes through two phases of coaching over 14-23 months. The program costs $10,090 and you can take it at your own pace. 
• Coach Training Alliance: This six-month program teaches you business, marketing, and coaching skills. The program costs $3,897 and is ICF-accredited. 

Step 3: Set up your online life coaching business

How do you set up your business? Your life coaching business plan should include: 

• Deciding on a business structure
• Developing a brand
• Deciding on a coaching business model 

First, set up the right business structure: 

• LLC: An LLC requires more paperwork but protects you from personal liability.
• Sole proprietorship: A sole proprietorship doesn’t protect you from personal liability, but you don’t have to register your business and it’s simpler to start than an LLC. 

Read more about what type of business you should start in my guide on legal requirements for life coaches. And if you’re wondering what insurance you need as a life coach, take a look here.

Then, decide on your coaching brand: 

• Just like some of your favorite brands (whether that’s Lululemon or Chanel), you need a strong identity that makes your ideal clients come to you.
• To define your brand, ask yourself how you’re different, what your “special sauce” is, how your values/beliefs are different, how your audience is different, and how your product is different. 

And choose a life coaching business model: 

• Your first offer is one-on-one coaching. Because you focus on individual clients, you’re able to get them faster results and so you can price your services at a higher price point than with other business models.
• After you’ve worked with a few private students, you can offer group programs and online self-learning courses.

Note that you don’t need a website. That’s how I got started – I built one (and not a very pretty one!) when I had made $20,000 in sales. 

If someone asked to see my website, I sent them to my LinkedIn profile. It worked just as well – if you’re a brand new coach, few people will decide to work with you based on your website. 

So…you can get started today with the skills you have NOW.

But how do you get those clients? 

Let’s find out. 

Step 4: Get clients

I’ve coached hundreds of new coaches. And one thing I hear all the time is this:

“Luisa, can I really get coaching clients? I can’t sell… Plus, I feel salesy.” 

Listen:

No one is born a salesperson, so we all go through this phase.

But once you realize that your coaching practice makes a huge impact in your students’ lives, you will feel much more comfortable when marketing and selling your services. 

For example, a 2016 study by the University of Salzburg shows that individual coaching and group programs are more effective for goal achievement than when people try to go at it alone. You as a coach help your students get results. 

And to find your first clients, use these strategies: 

• Reach out to your network: Reach out to your friends, family, or network. That’s what I did with my first coaching business, a career coaching service. I offered to coach five people who had asked me for career advice. When two of them said yes, I had a business. 
• Use social media: By having a digital presence on social media communities where your ideal clients already hang out (LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Reddit…), you can build relationships that naturally translate into paid clients. That’s how I got my first client. I helped someone in a Facebook group and gave a lot of value–for free. And as a result, she asked me how she could work with me.

For more on how to find clients, take a look at this quick video: 

Step 5: Market your life coaching business

Part of running a business means you need to continuously market your business. 

The first step is to double down on what you’re already doing.

For example, I got my first clients in Facebook groups. 

Soon after, I built my own group, started doing livestreams, and ultimately, added on Facebook ads. I used those strategies until I was well over seven figures in sales. 

That’s when I swapped to more scalable strategies, like YouTube and search engine optimization.

In other words, start with ONE platform/strategy and focus on it until you’re ready to master another one. 

Step 6: Price your life coach services

There are different life coaching pricing structures.

You could charge an hourly, package, or retainer rate. 

I recommend a package rate. This option is all about the results rather than any specific number of hours you put in. In other words, it’s much more attractive to prospective clients.

And a good starting point is $1,500 for a three-month package.

That time frame means you have enough time to work together and help them get results. But it’s short enough to make it easy to say “yes” to working together.

The structure of your packages is up to you. For example, offer weekly calls with support in between.

For more, here’s more on creating a coaching package that sells.

And here, I talk more about positioning yourself for the highest rates:

Step 7: Start coaching 

Once you have clients, it’s time to start coaching them. The first step is to onboard them. 

To do so, you’ll need: 

• A coaching intake form: Send this form to new clients before you start working with them. 
• A coaching contract: Send a coaching contract to your new clients. A contract helps you establish the right coaching boundaries. 

And then, it’s time to book your first life coaching session.

• Use tools like Calendly (call scheduling tool) and Zoom to hold your sessions.
• Map out sub-goals based on the overall goal of your life coaching package so that every month has its own subgoal and every session moves the client closer to that subgoal.
• Ask coaching questions that help clients find answers themselves and help clients figure out solutions based on your experience. (I call this coaching style coach-sulting.)

Continue learning and coaching – because it’s through practice that you ultimately learn how to become a great coach.

Here are a few resources you can use: 

• A list of the best coaching courses
• The best coaching books
• Top coaching podcasts

Frequently asked questions about becoming a life coach

What credentials do you need to be a life coach?

You’re not legally required to get certified as a life coach. The coaching certification industry is unregulated, so choosing a program from a business that isn’t accredited by an established organization like the International Coaching Federation comes with its own risks. However, you do need experience in what you’re coaching people on because you need to be able to help them get results. 

How much can you make as a life coach? 

The International Coach Federation cites $67,800 as the average salary for most life coaches. The average hourly rate is $100-150. But what other coaches make is not the baseline you need to set for your business. Many of my students have gone on to make six, multiple six or seven figures from their businesses. 

How much does it cost to become a life coach? 

A coaching business doesn’t require a lot of funding. And you can start getting a client from day one because you’re using skills you already have. However, if you decide to get certified, your starting costs will typically be $1,000-$13,000. 

Other costs include marketing costs (but strategies that help you get clients the fastest and most sustainably don’t cost anything – think networking, social media, or podcasting).

How long does it take to become a life coach? 

The time it takes to build a coaching business depends on a lot of factors. How much time do you put into building your business? How consistent are you? 

Start by spending at least 45 minutes per day promoting your business. (That’s what I did – I’d use 15 minutes during my lunch break and 30 minutes in the evenings to go into Facebook groups and build relationships.) 

Some of my students have successfully started their businesses within a few months, others need a bit longer. However long it takes for you, remember that you have your own journey. 

Are you ready to start building your business?

You made it this far! If you’ve ever asked yourself, “How do I become a life coach online?” – now you know how to become a successful life coach.

What an exciting time! Soon enough, you’ll be running your own business.

Want more help in building your business? 

Get my FREE PDF that teaches you how to start a 6-figure coaching business from scratch. 

Learn more:

What is Life Coaching?

How to Build a Life Coaching Business

Top Life Coaching Services