Coaching is helping people improve one or more areas of their lives by guiding, encouraging, and challenging them to meet specific measurable outcomes. It can be a good fulfilling and lucrative home-based business or online business if you are the type who enjoys connecting with people and working with them to help them reach their goals and potentials.

How Much do Coaches Make?

According to Payscale, life coaches make around $32.42 per hour, but the annual rate can range from $29,000 to $253,000 per year. I personally know many online coaches who make 6 to even 7 figures a year selling their knowledge and advice.

How much coaches make depends on a number of factors that include,

• Specialization – Some fields require more specialized knowledge or are more in demand, e.g., business coaches can command higher fees because their coaching could produce higher business revenues.
• Kind of client – Businesses and organizations could pay more than individual clients.
• Number of clients – More clients mean more fees paid.
• Location – Coaches who serve in upscale sectors of society are paid more.

How to Build Your Coaching Business

If you want to build your coaching business, here are the steps.

1. Choose what kind of coach you’re going to be

What area or field are you so good at that you can help others to be good at it? This could be your area of specialization. If you are a health buff, you can be a health coach and work with people who want help with nutrition and fitness. If you have a successful business that you built from the ground up, you can be a business coach and help entrepreneurs expand their business. If you enjoy reflecting on life and have a passion for improving yourself, you can be a life coach and help people clarify their life’s goals and work with them towards achieving them.

There are many other kinds of coaches like: career coaches, executive coaches, wellness coaches, performance coaches, skills coaches, financial coaches, and spiritual coaches.

You can also specialize in certain areas under these fields, like a life coach that specializes in relationships or parenting, a business coach that focuses on organizational, productivity, sales skills, or a wellness coach that helps people overcome drinking and smoking habits.

2. Improving your skills

Unlike counseling that requires a specialized degree and professional license, coaching can be done by anyone who has enough people skills to connect with others and the ability and knowledge to help. However, undergoing training can help you become a better coach and provide you with helpful tools. What’s more, you will have a certification that proves your credibility and increases your marketability.

Of course, aside from training in coaching, you would also want updated knowledge and skills in the area you want to coach in. And while you can draw from personal experience, you might consider additional training. For example, if you are to become a fitness coach, you would be more credible if you had a fitness certification.

3. Gather the necessary equipment and materials

You no longer need to buy or rent a physical office where you meet people in person. Or a phone where you might miss subtle visual cues when helping others. Technology has now enabled coaches to provided coaching services right from their own homes.

Through video conferencing, coaches can now do face-to-face coaching with clients all over the world, which may be why the coaching profession boomed in the last few years. Therefore, equipment-wise, all you need to start is a computer a quality set of headphones that you can get for less than $100, and an internet connection if you are planning to do your coaching online. You can then download Skype or Zoom for free. You might also need software that would let you record your sessions for reference.

You should also have a coaching contract, handouts, workshop materials, and other teaching materials that you can compose or purchase at reasonable prices.

4. Build a website/ sales funnel 

If you have a website, potential clients would have a place to learn more about your coaching business. Think of your website as a sales funnel, where you funnel the visitors through the buying process. ClickFunnels is a great platform for you to do this (learn more about ClickFunnels.)

You could also write and post coaching and client-focused content, describing how you can help people improve their lives. This would keep your clients and audience engaged with your site. Testimonials could also draw more people to your website.

5. Market yourself

First, build a marketing plan! Without customers, you don’t have a business. Identify your target clients and where you can find them. Then, formulate marketing strategies to make them learn about you as a coach and convince them to engage your services. And then execute that plan.

For instance, if you’re planning to be a career coach, you should set up a LinkedIn profile. Or if you’re planning to be a personal training coach, you might want to post YouTube videos of yourself giving fitness tips or teaching how to do specific exercises. Use your personal and professional network to help promote your coaching profession.

You could also offer free 15 or 30-minute coaching sessions to entice people to try you out. Offer free workshops to get people started and talking about you. And to keep your business rolling by keeping people aware of what you do, post blogs on your website, write articles for other blogs and media, or share helpful content on Instagram. You should put a lot of effort into gaining more exposure and credibility.

Pros to Consider

• Low initial cost – As mentioned, all you need to start is a computer, a reliable internet connection, a headset, your own website, and your coaching materials. You probably have most of them already, and you can make the rest or buy them at affordable prices.
• Sense of fulfillment – It can make you feel good helping the people you coach and seeing them become better in the area you are coaching them in.
• More with less time – Aside from one-on-one coaching, you can do group coaching like in a mastermind. Group coaching should cost less per person than individual coaching, so this can be especially helpful for people who can’t afford one-on-one time with you. At the same time, you can help more people in one go, using less time.
• Additional income streams – Aside from the coaching services, you can offer other products or services like books and online courses on your website to further help your clients. These could become additional passive income streams.

Cons to Consider

• Expert advice – You have to know what you’re talking about and be really be good in the area will be coaching on. This is important if you are to deliver the results you promised to your clients.
• People skills and patience – You need to connect with your clients and be patient with them. Your clients will likely be fearful and resistant to change. They will need you to support, encourage, and sometimes challenge them to make needed changes and be better.
• Time investment – You will be video conferencing and talking on the phone a lot, and that takes a lot of time. But if you’re the kind of person who likes to keep busy and has many appointments in a day, you might even thrive.
• Game face – You will need to be at your best whenever you’re meeting with clients. It doesn’t matter if you’re not feeling well, going through a personal issue, working through some difficulties in your life, you have to have your game face on when you’re with a client.
• Buildup time – It takes time and effort to build a solid, stable business in coaching. But it could be pay off handsomely in the long run.
• Coaching can be a fulfilling and lucrative business. However, it is not a business you can take lightly. People would be entrusting their emotional and/or physical well-being to you. You have to be updated on the current trends in your industry and the best practices of coaches.

Need Help Getting Started?

So you have a specialized skill or expertise that would benefit others and you want to turn that into a business? Maybe you are just a little scared because you don’t know what steps to take? If that’s you then I have a great news!

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This event will go down forever as one of the largest (if not the single greatest) online gathering of people in the history of the world… and missing out on something like this can sting because it only happens once. 

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