5 Expert Strategies on How to Get Clients as a Life Coach

It seems like life coaches have everything figured out.

With their training and educational background, they are equipped to help other people to put their lives together.

Unfortunately, many share a common struggle—getting coaching clients.

This is true for all coaches.

If you are a new life coach, you are probably looking for ways to find people who will trust you enough to use your services.

If you are an experienced coach, you need strategies to maintain a steady flow of clients.

Well, in this post I am going to pull back the curtain and reveal 5 of my biggest tips and tricks for finding coaching clients.

Let’s dive into it:

How to Get Clients as a Life Coach
source: unsplash.com (Diego PH)

How Do Life Coaches Get Their First Client?

If you are just starting out in your life coaching business, one of the biggest challenges that you will ever face is finding the first few people who would be willing to work with you. 

Since you are new to the industry and don’t have years of experience under your belt, it will be difficult to find many people who will trust you and your skills.

The good news is that all coaches have been in your position, and they were able to overcome this obstacle.

The goal is to look for at least three potential clients.

Three is not a random number.

My experience shows that three clients is the tipping point for most coaches.

There are many things that you can do to turn your zero clientele into three paying patrons to build a successful coaching business, and we will explore all of these in the next sections.

How Many Clients Does the Average Life Coach Have?

Studies show that, on average, a life coach helps 6 to 6.5 people per week.

Considering the hourly rate range of a coach (around $100 for new coaches and as much as $600 for veteran coaches), your potential annual income would range from $55,000 to $116,000.

One Tip Before We Get Started

Before we explore the various methods on how to get coaching clients, there is one thing that I want you to do first.

That is to establish a niche in your coaching business.

This is the first and most important step of reaching out to potential clients.

Establishing your niche will allow you to pinpoint exactly what sort of people make up you target market.

Once you can do this, it will be easier for you to create targeted marketing messages that will attract and appeal to your target group.

This will be a lot easier and more effective than just creating generic marketing messages.

How to Get Clients
source: unsplash.com (Corinne Kutz)

How to Hone Your Niche

One great way to hone your niche in your coaching business is to evaluate and analyze your personal and professional coaching experience.

You can do this by considering what your passion is, and who are the types of clients you love working with.

If you have a mentor, it would also be a great idea to get feedback from them.

Being the person who has closely worked with you in your life coaching practice for a long time, your mentor has the best insight on which type of life coaching you will be great at.

5 Tried-and-Tested Strategies on How to Get Life Clients As a Life Coach

Your life coaching practice has excellent income potential—if you can make it work.

Sadly, not all coaches earn what they are really worth because they fail to get coaching clients.

But you don’t need to fall into this crowd.

Things are about to change from now on. In this section, I am going to share with you some of the best strategies on how to find new clients for life coaching.

Once you have established your coaching niche, here are the expert marketing strategies that you can try:

How to Get Clients as a Life Coach

1. Do Public Speaking Engagements

If you want people to know about you and what you can do for them, the best thing that you can do is to go out there and talk.

When you speak on the stage in front of a hundred people regarding a topic or subject that you are an expert in, many people will come to see you as a figure of authority.

That is one great reputation to have if you want to get coaching clients.

When you leave the audience with this impression, you will be the person they will come to for help.

The good thing is there is always an organization that is looking for speakers.

However, you should carefully choose your speaking engagement.

Make sure that you only say yes to conferences where there is a high chance that you can pick up customers.

When choosing speaking engagements, consider the type of attendees and the niche of the conference or seminar.

It is crucial to ensure that the kind of industry, committee, or association hosting the workshop falls under the same category that you are in.

When evaluating the attendees, take a look if they need the help that you can offer.

Also, take note of their financial capabilities.

Ask yourself if the audience can afford your coaching services.

Also, it is crucial to keep in mind that some speaking engagements do not come with any payment.

But if you’re able to find paid speaking engagements, that’s even better since these can be another source of income for you.

2. Get Interviewed

Interviews are another effective way to get more clients.

You might think that it’s not the best idea since there is little to no chance that you will get paid for interviews.

While it is not financially rewarding, the amount of exposure that you can get when you are interviewed will make your time worth it!

And thanks to the introduction of vlogs and podcasts, it will be easier for you to find people who would want to feature you.

This is much more convenient and plausible than trying to get a spot to be interviewed on national TV.

Just like speaking engagements, being interviewed puts you in a position of authority.

This will attract the right people to your coaching business.

But of course, you must make sure that the interview is about the niche that you are specializing in.

It is also a must that you talk with the interviewer beforehand, so you will have an idea of the nature of the show and what you are going to talk about in the interview.

How to Get Clients Strategy
source: unsplash.com (Sam McGhee)

Related: How To Get Coaching Clients: 13 SECRET Tactics

3. Create a Blog

Aside from vlogs, another platform that you can take advantage of is blogs.

Your blog will be your online corner where you will share valuable tips and information to your visitors.

When creating your blog, you should not forget about your chosen coaching niche.

Create content that is relevant to your specialization.

But more than that, create content that would be useful to your target market.

If your content resonates with someone, they might just become your client.

Moreover, this potential client is most likely going to share it on their social media profiles.

As a result, your post (and you) can get maximum exposure.

4. Write a Guest Post

If you do not have a blog of your own or you don’t want to build one, the next best way to get similar exposure is to write guest posts.

This involves creating an article that will be posted on another person’s blog.

Of course, it will be credited to you.

If the blog’s visitors read your post and they are impressed by your article, they will view you as a reliable and trusted source.

The more people that trust you, the bigger your life coaching business will get.

Another great thing with guest posting is it is like a gift that keeps on giving.

Since the article will be posted on a website, your next potential client may come across it even after a few years have passed.

To maximize your exposure, it is recommended that you write guest posts for a website or blog that has high traffic and a good reputation.

Life Coach
source: unsplash.com (Thought Catalog)

5. Build Your Website

If there is one strategy that is more effective in getting coaching clients than creating a blog, it is to create a professional business website.

Most likely, your target client will rely on a Google search when looking for a coach.

Studies show that Google is the go-to platform for consumers who are looking for products and services.

If you don’t build your site, you will surely miss out on such a great opportunity.

To make your internet marketing efforts as successful as possible, you should aim to put your website at the top of search engine rankings.

This means that your website will be the first one to appear in searches that are related to your niche or industry.

To do this, you should hire a team or an expert internet marketer who is knowledgeable about SEO.

But more than that, you should try to learn basic SEO techniques yourself.

Here are two of the tactics that I have used to fast track the success of my own business:

Related: Expert Tips – Marketing For Coaches – Next Level

Take Advantage of Social Media

Everyone is on social media.

The client you are looking for might be on these platforms, so there is no reason for you not to be in it.

If you want to get a new client, you need to be visible where the people are, and there is no better place for that than social media.

You can create your Facebook business page or sign up for Twitter or be on Instagram.

It doesn’t matter which platform you choose. The only important thing is you deliver value to your followers.

You can do this by sharing relevant information and providing them content that will be helpful to them and what they are going through.

In addition to educating them, engage with them.

Talk to them and be of service to them.

The more visible you are in the social scene, the more followers you will have, and the higher the chances that you can reach out to potential clients.

When marketing in these sites, one important tip to keep in mind is to stick to one or two social platforms.

Don’t create accounts in all social media platforms, as managing them all at once can be stressful and will lead to lackluster results.

What you should do is pick only one or two social platforms and focus on marketing in those.

When choosing which platform to market in, consider the persona of your target client and think about which platform he is most likely to hang out in.

Additionally, try to make use of videos when posting on Facebook.

Since there are already a lot of businesses marketing on these platforms, you need to find a way to stand out, and posting an attention-grabbing video with relevant content may just be what you need to do that.

You should also leave room for engagement.

You can do this by asking your viewers or followers to share their feedback in the comments section.

You may also encourage them to ask questions if they have any.

Connect With Other Coaches

You don’t have to be enemies with your rivals.

Try connecting with them, and you will be surprised just how beneficial it is to be friends with them.

With the right connections, you can be able to broaden your clientele base through their referrals.

If they feel that you are more fit for the job, they will surely recommend you.

After all, you will have different strengths and weaknesses, even if you belong to the same niche or industry.

Related: Steps To A Lean Life Coach Business Plan

Are You Ready to Find Your Clients?

Getting started with life coaching can be challenging, but it doesn’t have to be impossible.

It doesn’t matter how good you are at the job, the fact remains that you need clients.

You need to establish a good client base to grow your business and make a living. 

With the strategies I’ve laid out in this post, you have everything you need to find people who need your services to create a new life for themselves.

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About The Author

Bijan Kholghi is a certified life coach with the Milton Erickson Institute Heidelberg (Germany). He helps clients and couples reach breakthroughs in their lives by changing subconscious patterns. His solution-oriented approach is based on Systemic- and Hypnotherapy.

Bijan