How do you get coaching clients online?
Getting coaching clients doesn’t have to be a constant hustle. Getting that first client can feel hard…but with the right strategies, you’ll figure it out fast.
And today, I’ll share the strategies that have helped me and plenty of other coaches get their first high-paying clients with results like this:
Want to learn more? Read on!
Here’s how to get coaching clients:
1. Get interviewed on podcasts
14. Create a webinar that sells
15. Find partners for joint ventures
16. Find affiliates who want to promote you
How do you get your first (or more) coaching clients?
One of the most important skills you’ll learn as a coach is how to get clients. After all, building a coaching funnel that consistently delivers clients will help you…
- Create a more predictable business
- Help you improve your profitability
- Grow and scale your business to where you want it to be
And the strategies I share below will help you get started (regardless of your niche).
However, before we dive in, there are a few things you need to have in place before you get started. You need a:
- Niche: You’ll need a niche to attract your ideal clients. If you offer a solution to a specific problem (such as health coaching, career coaching, or mindset coaching), people who need your solution will be much likelier to come to you if your offer is tailored to them. Here’s how to find a niche.
- Package: You also need a coaching offer to sell. I share how to create one here.
- Methodology: How do you help clients get results? If you can help clients get results, you’ll get more testimonials and, as a result, more clients. Read more about it here.
Now, let’s move on to the best strategies for attracting your ideal coaching clients.
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1. Get interviewed on more podcasts
There are podcasts that cover nearly every topic or niche out there. And YOU can tap into an audience someone has already built and nurtured.
After all, podcast hosts want to talk to you. You have something unique and valuable to offer because you’re an expert in your niche.
Early on in my business, I was interviewed on the podcast “So Money” by Farnoosh Torabi….
And that podcast made a big difference for me.
But, here’s the thing:
You don’t have to get interviewed on big podcasts (like So Money) to attract your first clients.
Instead of pitching those types of podcasts, focus on smaller, but engaged, audiences.
First, you improve your chances of getting interviewed…And second, you get in front of people who are really interested in what you have to say.
I’ve been on plenty of podcasts and a lot of the best performing ones were podcasts with a smaller following.
How do you find the right podcasts, though? Use these Google search queries:
- “Podcast” + “[your keyword]”
- “Top podcasts (year)” + “[your keyword]”
Look at podcasts that publish content consistently and have less than 50 reviews.
That’s your sweet spot – they’re small enough not to be overwhelmed with pitches, while they most likely have an existing audience.
Use this template:
“Hello [PODCASTER’S NAME],
I’m [Your Name], and I [share something distinctive about yourself that highlights your suitability as a guest]. I’m eager to explore the possibility of being a guest on [podcast name]. Here are a few subjects I believe would resonate with your listeners:
- [Topic suggestion 1]
- [Topic suggestion 2]
- [Topic suggestion 3]
Would these topics interest [podcast name]’s audience? I look forward to your feedback.
Warm regards,
[Your Name]”
(But tailor this email to your own voice…People can tell if you’re using a template!)
2. Use PR
I’ve been featured in publications from Inc, Entrepreneur, and Bloomberg. And these types of media mentions build a lot of trust.
But how do you get featured in the media as a completely new business owner?
Connectively is a fantastic service – and it only takes 20 minutes a day.
To use Connectively, sign up for an account. On the platform, you’ll get access to tons of media requests.
Those opportunities are posted by journalists and bloggers who are looking for article sources.
If your pitch gets selected, you get featured in their publication.
The best way to use Connectively is to…
- 5 minutes/day: Quickly scan the media queries
- 15 minutes/day: When a query piques your interest, craft and send your response
3. Use paid ads
Paid advertising is one of the more scalable strategies on this list.
I personally used paid advertising to grow my business to seven figures in my first year.
But while paid ads work, I don’t recommend them before you have at least a few paying clients.
However, if you are at the point where you want to scale, paid ads including Meta or Google ads can work well.
That said, paid advertising is much more sophisticated today than it was a few years ago. Which means that you need to know your way around using ads before pouring money into them.
The steps to using them in the right way are:
Step 1: Create targeted ads
These days, you can’t use the same ad over and over. Instead, you need to tailor your ads to your audience and constantly rethink them.
For this, you need two things – first, enough time to keep on brainstorming new ad creatives (or a budget to hire a good, paid advertising agency to do it for you).
And second, you need to understand your audience well enough.
Step 2: Create converting ads
Great ads come down to two things:
- Writing compelling copy
- Creating attention-grabbing visuals
If you have these elements in place, your ads will work for you.
To learn what it takes to run your ads, read my guide on Facebook ads for coaches.
4. Use SEO
A few years ago, I noticed something interesting. I had started getting far higher quality leads than before. And when I looked into where they were all coming from, I realized they all came from search traffic.
At the time, I had started investing in SEO. And so I doubled down on this traffic source.
Fast forward to today and my traffic – and rankings – are one of the biggest revenue drivers in my business.
Here’s a quick breakdown of how SEO works:
With SEO, you optimize your coaching website so that it appears in search engines like Google.
When people find your website, they click through, and some of them buy from you.
Contrary to ads, you don’t pay for your traffic. At the same time, 53% of all trackable website traffic comes from search engines.
But to grow your SEO, you need to blog consistently.
With your blogs, you target keywords…And if your blog ranks for its target keywords, people find them when they search for things on search engines.
That’s how you get traffic.
For example:
If you have a service page where you sell health coaching, you’d optimize that page for a keyword like “health coaching services.”
But…
You also need to build website authority by building backlinks, links from external websites. They help Google trust your website and rank it.
Some of the easiest ways to build backlinks are to use Connectively, pitch podcasts, and write guest posts. (So by following the steps in this post, you’ll get far!)
Want to learn more about using SEO to scale your business?
Watch my tutorial or read my guide on SEO for coaches.
5. Use social media
There are plenty of social media platforms you can use to get clients, including…
Choose the right platform
The first step is to choose ONE platform where your audience hangs out.
For example, my students Emily and Anna, who are career coaches, found their first clients on LinkedIn.
Emily simply announced her new career coach side business on LinkedIn and quickly got a few paying clients…
Similarly, Anna used LinkedIn to get her first career coaching clients.
On the other hand, Instagram, which is a visual platform, works great for health coaches. Take Cristina, a holistic health coach, who found her first coaching client on Instagram.
But Instagram works great for other niches too. I’ve personally used Instagram to sell courses worth a few hundred to a few thousand dollars and my $18,000+ mastermind coaching package.
Create content
The best part about social media is that you talk to people via actual conversations.
As a result, you build relationships in weeks rather than months.
Now, most people will go on social media to promote themselves.
That won’t get you far because people don’t know who you are–and your promotional posts won’t resonate with them.
Flip it around and focus on building relationships instead of getting your next sale.
That’s how I landed my first coaching client. At the time, I was building a digital advertising coaching business.
And I knew a lot of small business owners (my audience) were hanging out in Facebook groups. I didn’t really know anything about selling, but I wanted to understand my audience better. That’s why I went into these groups every day to share advice and help people.
I ended up helping one woman for free, for two weeks.
One day, she said, “You’ve helped me so much and I can see how much value I would get from working with you. I’d like to hire you.”
And I had my first sale – a $5,000 coaching package.
Now, I’m not saying you need to help people for free for weeks or months.
But the point is, by focusing on giving value first, you’ll get there much faster.
When building relationships on social media, make sure to…
- Introduce yourself so they know who you are and how you can help them
- Give value to them by engaging in conversations and posting insightful content
- Showcase your expertise by answering people’s questions and giving helpful advice
- Infotain – build trust while being interesting and entertaining
- Engage as a person – be yourself so that people will relate to you as a person
Get the Ultimate Guide
for building a
6-Figure Coaching Business so you can achieve more freedom!
Want my guide on what content you should share on social media? Here you go.
After following the above steps for just a few weeks, your audience will know you and be ready to hear about your offer.
The thing is: When you share your offer, you’ll actually make sales instead of getting crickets.
Read more about social media marketing for coaches here.
6. Find the best guest posting opportunities
Think guest posting is “dead”?
Not so fast! Guest posting is still a good way to grow your business.
However, you DO need to focus on high-quality, niche websites.
Those websites have already built engaged audiences who are interested in your services. With your guest post, you get in front of them.
Take one of my guest posts on Business Insider. It got a lot of traction – and a five-figure sales week.
How do you find the right opportunities, though?
Write a list of 10 sites or podcasts you’d like to be featured on.
You can find them by googling:
“Contribute” + “your coaching niche”
“Submit guest post” + “your niche”
“Guest post” + “your niche”
Then, reach out to the website with this script:
“Hi NAME OF EDITOR,
My name is (your name) and I am (include something relevant about yourself).
I’d love to submit a guest post to (name of publication). I researched topics that would do great on your site:
- Topic suggestion 1
- Topic suggestion 2
- Topic suggestion 3
I’ve previously written guest posts for (include a few sites if you’ve previously written guest posts):
- Link to example 1
- Link to example 2
- Link to example 3
Let me know if these look interesting to (name of publication)?
Best,
YOUR NAME”
7. Use coaching platforms
A popular marketing strategy is to use directories to find clients.
Some of the platforms have membership fees and some work based on commission.
A few coaching platforms include:
- Thumbtack: You pay a commission for every lead you get, without sign-up or membership fees.
- Coaching.com: Offers a coaching directory with a 15-25% commission.
- Noomii: Coaching directory with an annual fee.
- LifeCoachHub: Free coaching directory.
The thing is…I personally am not a huge fan of coaching directories or marketplaces.
Why? Because they position coaches as commodities…which they aren’t.
And if you want high-quality, high-paying coaching clients, you need to master marketing and sales. Otherwise, you don’t build a sustainable, profitable business – instead, you’ll be dependent on marketplaces.
So if you decide to take this route, combine it with another marketing strategy on this list.
8. Tap into your network to find clients fast
One of the best strategies for new coaches?
This! Use your network.
You see, your network already likes and trusts you.
So they’re much likelier to buy from you.
How?
You can send something like this:
“Hey NAME,
I’m starting a new business that helps people with….
If you know someone who would be interested in this, please let me know.
I’m happy to offer them a free coaching call so that they can get to know me and start getting some great results.
If they’re interested, I’ll share more about how I can help them further, but if not, they’ll still get great value out of the free session.”
Just to clarify – this isn’t about making your friends feel pressured to buy from you.
For example, Emily and Anna, who we talked about above, posted about their services on LinkedIn.
They let their networks know that they were starting a business – and got their first career coaching clients.
In fact:
This is the strategy I used to get my first career coaching clients.
Before I started my current business, I sold career coaching.
I had already helped some of my coworkers by giving them free career advice. So when I started my business, I reached out to them and let them know about my new services.
A few of them signed up – and I had a business.
9. Get coaching clients on Pinterest
Next up:
Pinterest.
If you produce some type of content (blog posts, YouTube videos…), you can promote those on Pinterest.
First, Pinterest has a ton of users. (28% of people in the US use Pinterest!)
And people use Pinterest to get inspired, so they’re already using it to consume content.
The way you get traffic from Pinterest is by pinning pins that you link to your content.
When people click through, they land on your website.
Pinterest works, even if you’re not in a “visual” niche.
My business is not in that type of a niche but Pinterest keeps driving thousands of visitors to my website every month.
Pinterest takes time to build, though.
So use this strategy when you’re at a place where you can scale your coaching business.
What’s more, Pinterest can be automated. If you use a tool like Tailwind, you can schedule pins once a month and they are then published throughout the month.
But let’s talk about a powerful strategy you can’t miss…Email marketing.
10. Build an email list
Early on, you’ll get clients by building direct relationships.
But as you grow your business, it becomes harder to spend time building those one-on-one relationships.
And that’s where email marketing comes in.
You see, if you only rely on building a following on social media, you end up building an audience you don’t really own.
But your email list is yours.
And it helps you scale relationships so that every time you write an email, you send it to all your subscribers. Way faster than individually DM:ing your followers.
Plus, email has a massive ROI – for every $1 spent on email marketing, marketers make $42.
However, while you don’t need a big email list to get clients, it does take time to build one.
That’s why this isn’t the strategy you should start out with.
But once you start building your email list, you can use these strategies to build it:
- Podcast interviews
- Guest posts
- Paid ads
- SEO
I talk more about email marketing here:
11. Get referrals (without being pushy)
Why do people buy from you?
And that’s why referrals work so well. If someone has heard good things about you from someone they know, they are much more likely to sign up for your coaching.
Now, you could get referrals from family and friends.
But once you’ve worked with a few clients, they can refer clients to you – which can help you get a lot more clients for every client you find.
However, you need to be proactive about asking for referrals. People are busy and don’t always think about making those connections.
Send an email that doesn’t sound pushy or needy.
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6-Figure Coaching Business so you can achieve more freedom!
A good idea is to offer a commission to incentivize referrals. (10% is standard for services.)
You can send them a script like this one:
Hi [Name],
I hope you’re doing well!
I’m reaching out because I know you appreciate the quality of my work, and I’m currently bringing on more customers. Space is limited, but if you know someone who needs [specific task], I would be happy to help. I’m offering a 10% commission for every successful referral.
Please feel free to pass on my contact info. They can reach me at [contact info].
Thank you!
Best,
[Your name]
Read more about getting referrals here.
12. Attend events
The other strategies on this list are online marketing strategies.
But you can use offline strategies, too, even if you offer coaching online. And the most effective ways to promote your coaching business offline are to…
Speak at conferences
Give talks at conferences. Look for conferences close to where you live and contact the organizers to sign up as a speaker.
One of my students, Ryan, has successfully used this strategy to sell his real estate coaching services.
Organize meetups
Another way to promote your services offline is to organize meetups and promote them in local Facebook groups, event pages, or Meetup.com.
Create your meetup around the goal your clients are trying to reach.
For instance, if you offer health coaching services, you could organize a cooking meetup for people who want to eat healthy, a workout group, or similar.
13. Build an audience on Quora
Quora is a platform for questions and answers.
People ask questions and people who are experts on those topics answer.
Your answers can get a lot of views on the platform…
And some answers rank very well in Google – leading to even more views to your answer.
The key is to write answers that are engaging (hook people from the start), complete, and give an “aha” to people.
14. Create a webinar that sells
Are you at the stage where you’ve already built a sales funnel?
In that case, a webinar can help you increase your sales.
You see, webinars are a fast way to build trust with people without jumping on sales calls with them. That said, your webinar needs to be structured and delivered in the right way.
So, how do you create a converting webinar?
Here’s what I’ve learned after having sold millions through my own webinars:
15. Find partners for joint ventures
One of the best strategies to get coaching clients?
Find partners to do joint ventures with.
What this means is that you and a partner do a joint promotion, such as:
- A social media live
- Social media posts
- Webinar
- Email campaign
The person you partner up with should work with the same audience, without being a direct competitor.
In other words:
If you’re a health coach for women, you could partner up with a nutritionist who works with that same audience.
Next up:
Affiliate marketing.
16. Find affiliates to promote you
Affiliate marketing means that someone promotes your coaching program and gets a commission for every sale. Affiliates can be highly effective (and that’s probably why 80% of brands use them).
Typically, a commission for services is 10% – but it depends on the affiliate and your program.
I work with select affiliates who promote my programs. I’ll also occasionally do an affiliate promo if I love the program I’m promoting.
For example, I’m a proud affiliate of Lifehack Method (a productivity training business) and I regularly promote their offer. Like I do in this email:
You need to find the right affiliates, though.
Look at other coaches or creators who you trust and who have the right type of audience.
You can do a simple Google search, comb through LinkedIn, or other social media groups to find the right affiliates. (Note: People with huge audiences will probably not be a good fit – look for people with engaged audiences, even if they’re on the smaller side.)
And for more on how to get clients, take a look at this short video:
FAQ: Get coaching clients
How do you get high-paying coaching clients?
To get high-paying coaching clients, you need the right coaching niche and coaching offer, including a target audience who is willing and able to pay for your services. Your offer also needs to help your students achieve a specific goal. (Such as: Losing 10lbs, finding a healthy relationship, or getting a promotion.)
How do you get coaching clients without social media?
If you want to get clients without social media, choose other online strategies. If you want to land your first coaching clients, you might ask your network for help or do podcasting. But if you’re looking for more coaching clients, then SEO or paid ads can be helpful.
How do you get new coaching clients in 15 minutes per day?
You can get new coaching clients in 15-30 minutes a day. That’s what I did when I was still in my 9-5. I scheduled 3×15-minute time slots throughout the day. I’d then sit down and work on my business during that time, usually during my lunch break and after work.
However, here’s the kicker: I only focused on ONE strategy to build my business to six figures. If you try to master 5 strategies at the same time, you won’t get far. For me, that meant using one social media platform and engaging on that platform every day. (I’ll share which platform I used below.) For you, it might be a totally different strategy. Ask yourself: Where does my audience hang out? That’s where you should be.
Get the Ultimate Guide
for building a
6-Figure Coaching Business so you can achieve more freedom!
What’s next?
And that’s how you get your first paying coaching clients.
But getting those first clients is the FIRST step.
You also need to master all the other areas of business…and a lot of people get stuck!
That’s what happened to me. I was working a busy 9-5, but wanted to quit so that I could build an abundant life full of freedom and flexibility.
I wanted a roadmap to help me figure things out faster without having to do it all on my own. But while I kept looking for one, all of the programs out there were created for people who had already quit their jobs.
Quitting my job felt way too risky. So over the next few years, I went through a lot of trial and error to figure out how to build an online business…
…Until I finally developed a system that WORKED. Within 4 months, I had built a six-figure business – and left my 9-5.
Learning how to build my business led me to create the roadmap I wish I had had when I was a new entrepreneur.
Want to learn more about it?
Get my FREE blueprint to grow your own successful coaching business.
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