💻 [OBO DIGEST] Coaching Business 101

The ultimate guide to starting and growing a coaching business…

Written by: Online Business Owner • April 18, 2022

Hey there, and welcome to our first special edition of The Online Business Digest!

In today’s issue, we’re talking about the ins and outs of running an online coaching business. We’re covering:

How to build a coaching program
How to get coaching clients
How to improve your coaching skills
How to scale your coaching business

This special edition of The Online Business Digest is brought to you by our friends at Thinkific. Thinkific is a software platform that enables entrepreneurs to create, market, sell, and deliver their own online courses and membership sites.

You can learn more about using Thinkific for your online coaching business and get started with a 30-day free trial by clicking here!

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How to Build a Coaching Program in 7 Steps

Building a coaching business can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be! A Coaching Program Template can help you create and deliver a personalized coaching experience for all of your clients.

According to the team at Thinkific, using a template for coaching makes it easier to run your business and more straightforward to help your clients get results.

You might be thinking…you should structure a new program for each client. And that’s not exactly wrong — you should customize your approach to address each client’s needs. But you can save a lot of time by developing a basic program structure and tweaking it accordingly on a case-by-case basis.

How to Structure Your Coaching Program

Whether you’re coaching on business strategy, career development, health and wellness, parenting, or making big life decisions, your coaching program should include these elements:

Initial Assessment: during your first session, you’ll find out who your client is and what needs you’ll help them address.
Goal Setting: now it’s time to identify and prioritize what your client wants to work on and set goals to achieve it.
Tactic and Activities: determine what specific tools and activities you’ll use to help your client.
Resources: next, you should outline the resources you have to share with your clients, like your own content and other tools.
Week-by-Week Session Planning: once you know where you’re headed, craft a plan with milestones and a program outline.
Progress Evaluation: you’ll want to wrap up the program by reflecting on your client’s progress to see how far they’ve come.
Collecting Feedback: in the end, you should collect feedback from your client to improve your program.

Using this program template allows you to create a custom experience for your clients while having a more streamlined approach to your business.

To make mapping out your coaching program easier, Thinkific has created a fully customizable free Coaching Program Template for you! You can find the template and more program resources here!

How to Get Your First or Next 10 Coaching Clients in the Next 90 Days

Marketing your business online can be done in two ways: paid and organic. Paid marketing relies on paying for ads for leads and traffic. Organic marketing utilizes social media, blogging, and other platforms to get more leads and sales.

The team at Thinkific recently talked with Marc Mawhinney, Founder of Natural Born Coaches, about how coaches can get more clients by using organic strategies and without using paid advertising.

Whether you’re brand new to coaching online or you’re a pro looking for ways to gain more clients, this is how you can get your first or next ten coaching clients in the next 90 days.

Podcasting

You can start your own podcast if you want. But you don’t have to!

One of the best ways to market your coaching business is to guest on other people’s podcasts.

Marc shared an excellent tip for making this happen: Work Your Network! “Once a week, post on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn and tell the world that you’re looking to be featured as a guest. Include 2-3 topics that you’re interested in talking about to make it easy for people to understand the value you’d bring to their audience.”

Facebook Groups

Hosting a free Facebook Group is another way to build an engaged audience and sell your coaching services. Marc has built a community of over 22,000 members!

Here are his tips for growing your own Facebook Group:

Have fun with your group.
Engage with your audience.
Be consistent and active.
Don’t hold back on what you have to sell.
Buy your group URL.
Provide immense value.

Discover more of Marc’s Facebook Group growth tips here!

Daily Emails

Lastly, Marc shares that he sends an email to his list every day!

“Before I started doing emails every day, I was doing maybe one email a week, or one every two weeks. I was sending boring content like everyone else, and I wasn’t really getting any engagement from my email list. That all changed when started doing daily emails.”

A daily email is a commitment, but it helps you stay top of mind with your potential clients and helps you refine your mailing list.

Marcs recommends keeping your emails short and simple and including a CTA in every message inviting readers to go deeper with you or work with you.

Learn more about organic marketing for your coaching business (including the Casino Strategy and how to offer free coaching calls properly) from Marc on the Thinkific blog!

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