How to Build a Sustainable Coaching Business

You’re at a friendly gathering. A person you do not know approaches and makes conversation with you. Eventually the question is asked… here’s what it’s normally like for me.

Person: So, what do you do?

Me: I run LivingforMonday.com where we do coaching and training for young professionals.

P: Oh, so you must be in pretty good shape, huh?

M: Dammit.

That’s my typical conversation at a get-together where I’m not particularly keen on diving into the details of what it means to be in the business of helping people become great at what they do.

Which brings us back to you and I. As a reader of The Sparkline, I’ll bet you may have considered becoming a coach as a way of creating a revenue stream for your business.

The problem with coaching as a profession lies in our tendency to resort to it as the answer to turning any blog into a business or idea into revenue. Unfortunately, it’s not always that simple.

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I’ve managed to increase my hourly coaching rate 444% over the past 12 months, create a steady income stream from coaching, and generate regular referrals from my existing clients. My goal with this post is to help you start on the same path with three steps:

• Have a well-defined target audience
• Creating a unique selling proposition
• Build social proof

Let’s get started.

Step 1: Have a well-defined target audience for your services

“You can be best in the world at whatever you want as long as you define world the right way.” – Seth Godin

To be the best in the world, you have to choose your definition of world, which starts with creating a crystal clear picture of your target audience.

Successfully defining your audience should provide answers to four key questions:

• Do you care deeply about your audience?
• Is your audience able to pay your rate?
• Can you produce 5-10x your coaching rate in value?
• Do you still care deeply about helping?

Step 2: Create a Unique Selling Proposition to Appeal to Your Target Audience

“Achieve more.” “Reach your potential.” “Make your dreams reality.”

These are phrases that appeal to no one by trying to appeal to everyone. And yet, the majority of coaches brand themselves this way.

You know your audience better than anyone else because you’ve done your homework and you’ve identified patterns, and your unique selling proposition, or USP, should reflect that.

You can think of your USP as filling in these blanks: “I help “audience” in “location/industry/area of focus” do/become/solve/overcome/achieve “challenge or aspiration.”

But, but, but, I’m on the INTERNET! The Four Hour Work Week said I could be a lifestyle designer and location independent!

Great. Maybe you’re right. But remember, you can be best in the world at whatever you want as long as you create a feasible definition of world to start with. If you can’t be best in the world of [insert hometown here], how can you be best in the entire world? I’m not saying you shouldn’t leverage the internet, but I am saying you should focus on a geographic area or area of expertise that allows you to build a sustainable business.

In my business, I have had to do the same thing. My USP for my coaching services is, “I help under-35 entrepreneurs, executives, and salespeople in Atlanta create systems to exceed your goals while holding you accountable to the projects that will most directly help you profitably achieve your vision.” The last four words can change based on sub-segments of my audience.

Create a USP that specifically identifies your audience and the goals or challenges you are solving for. +1 if you can do it in their own words. If you can’t, then it’s time to do more interviews.

Step 3: Build Social Proof for Your Services

Social proof convinces to skeptical audience members that you can do what you say you can do in your USP. Your job is to build enough social proof that it makes it easier for your audience to say yes to your services.

I use a list of experiences and a growing book of client testimonials to back my USP up. The experiences include working for Seth Godin, advising Coke’s Chief People Officer, and being a top performer at a well-known global consulting firm. I have past/existing clients write a “letter to a potential client” to build my book of proof.

I understand that you may not have the same background, but you can build social proof for your services even if you’ve never had a single client. Here’s how…

Pick 10 people you know and care about in your target audience. You may be able to look back at your interviews from your target audience research for good candidates. Offer each person a free 30 – 90 minute coaching session in exchange for being able to film/record the sessions and post them publicly. (This is exactly what Derek Halpern did with website conversion reviews when he was getting started at Social Triggers).

Side note: This post is not about how to become a great coach, but I hope it goes without saying that you have to actually be able to deliver value in order for this method to work for you. (If you have no coaching experience or training, start here, here, here, and here.)

Once you’ve recorded the 10 coaching sessions, hire a video editor to create a highlight reel of the most powerful moments from the sessions. Put your highlight reel on a landing page where you make the full video recordings available to your audience in exchange for an email.

Use the recordings to design an email funnel that slowly but surely builds trust, confidence, and expertise with your audience. At the end of your email series, offer a free 30 minute session for anyone that is interested in hiring you as a coach. This will allow your audience to transition from seeing others being coached to experiencing it for themselves.