How to Start a Coaching Business. Every week we'll be chatting with a business owner, helping them to bust through the challenges they are facing with their business in our Fix Your Business interview series.
In today's episode you'll be learning about how to not only how to start a coaching business but also how to grow a life coaching business to 6-figures in just 60 days.
If you want to grow a coaching business or learning how to become a business or life coach then watch the video now!
Remember, starting a coaching business requires dedication, effort, and a clear strategy. By following these steps and being persistent, you can achieve success in the coaching industry.
0:00:00 - How to Start a Coaching Business
0:04:10 - Online Coaching Products
0:05:26 - Marketing for Coaches
0:07:27 - Google My Business for Coaches
0:11:17 - How to Get First Life Coaching Clients
0:14:12 - How much should I charge for Life Coaching?
0:19:27 - How to get life coaching clients?
Jo worked her way up from receptionist to senior editor over 15 years at academic publishing house, where she was bullied for the latter 10 of those years, which, along with abusive relationships, culminated in a complete nervous breakdown.
Jo has since worked in a social media/PR business, as a care worker, and even presented gin tasting classes for a distillery but still hadn't found her calling.Jo says she is now completely focused and motivated whilst on furlough to make my big dreams reality and finally start a coaching business which is now easier than ever thanks to all the resources available online, from webinars and courses all the way to legal templates for coaches.
In Jo's words, "I've learned so much on myjourney from breakdown to breakthrough and want to inspire and help other women to live a more fulfilling life."
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- Welcome back, everybody, it is the next episode of "Fix Your Business," and I am your host, Robin Weights, the fearless business coach. Today we are going to be speaking with Joe Betteridge who is just starting out on her coaching journey, which is very exciting. After working for 15 plus years in corporates across multiple different, businesses from an oil and gas company to a publishing house to a social media, marketing, business, and all sorts of things there, Welcome to the show, Jo. [bell ringing]
- Thank you. Hello. [laughing]
- So don't look scared, it's all going to fine. [laughing]
- do I look that scared?
- So we are gonna just ease your way into it. So you're just on the cusp of kind of starting up your coaching practise. So give us a 60 second precis of kind of, you know what drove you to set up the coaching practise and what you're hoping to achieve with it in the future. It has all exploded out of nowhere. I've started to write a novel about healing broken hearts at a place called Heartbreak Hotel. People are having their hearts healed and their lives lit up with it. An inner light and inner passion. And I thought alongside that book, I could do an online course on online coaching so that the people reading the book having any form of in love with the characters can go on their own journey of self discovery and light themselves up from within. So it's gone from, you know, being a novel to maybe an online course to, to actually live, real life coaching. So, and this is all just happened in the last month. So it's all exploded. So I'm very new to it and just literally right at the beginning, but what I want to get out of it is to help people feel excited about their lives within from within and have a real passion and purpose. [murmuring]
- That all sounds like, sounds really clear and, like obvious about kind of, I'm starting to get a picture of who it is that you want to help and how you're going to help them and I think it's some it's one of those things that a lot of the best coaches and coaching practises are built on this need to obviously help people and transform their lives. So I think that's the best place to start. I know you're working with another business coach as well. So we've had a good chat beforehand to work out exactly how this is going to go. One of the things which I think we've established is kind of taking some of those early steps in terms of setting up a coaching practise and how to get started. So do you want to explain kind of, you know, where you're at at the moment and what some of those early steps look like for you right now.
- Yep. So the first step I think, is I want to do we were talking about three for free. I want to start talking to people, you know, where I'm kind of learning the coaching as I go helping people and and they're helping me too. So that's something I want to do and I also need to develop my customer journey and really plot those steps of you know, them coming to me with a pain point to to fix, and then me kind of plotting those steps that will lead them to their breakthrough and their you know their outcome at the end?
- Oh, well, should we dive in?
- Yes, [laughing]
- That customer journey. Excellent. I'm just going to share my screen up here. One of the best things about working with coaches who are just starting out is the fact that literally, we have a blank canvas to be able to design this thing. So that is the perfect business model customer journey framework that we could possibly build. Sometimes when you take a coach and he's been kind of doing it for years, you know, for a long period of time, sometimes it can be a little bit of kind of unpicking, before we actually get into the good stuff and start rebuilding. It's a little bit like, you know, imagine rebuilding a house, you've got to take off all the old plaster and dig up the floor and take the old roof off before you actually start putting everything back together and making it look nice again. So I love the fact that we've got a blank sheet of paper here which we can kind of work from. So I don't know if you're familiar with my I have a product called architecture model which has the seven perfect steps in a customer journey. It works for anybody who is in the service client business. So coaches, consultants and freelancers. And we're going to try and customise this. So it's specific to you. So it's called the product architecture model, because it will eventually start to look a little bit like a house. But initially, and you're kind of going through this process at the moment, we have to do the marketing in order to attract people to our house in the first place that we're trying to sell. So we have a process which we call building marketing assets, basically. Now I know that you've already,um, for example, started with a Facebook page.
- Mm hmm. Yeah.
- What else have you got?
- I am just in the middle of building a website. So it started off as a blog site just to share my writing journey. But I've realised actually that that needs to be a bit more strategic now. And not just me rambling off about my my own thoughts on things it needs to be you know, we're kind of a more of, uh, sales point if you like a shop window, and and i think i need to set up Instagram and Twitter too, and maybe do some live videos.
- Love it. Yeah, absolutely. So were gonna do some live videos potentially on your Facebook page.
- Mm hmm
- Oops, if I could spell videos that would help, live videos. [laughing] I'd also recommend potentially looking at setting up a group, which I think your other coach mentioned as well. I said offline before we started recording that I had an idea for that which I think could be quite strategic for you. And I was wondering whether one of the things which she could do was like, you know, they are quite popular at the moment, but you could do something like a five day challenge which is like a, you know, a five day find your fire challenge or something like that.
- Love it
- and you know, and use that. So basically what you'll be doing is using the group to, you know, as a feeder basically. So when people apply to come into your challenge, you say cool. One of the first steps is you need to go into your group. So I'm a massive fan of Facebook groups because you get great engagement in them. But the best thing about it is I mean, yes, okay, it's on Facebook, but technically it's your audience, you own the audience and you get to put whatever content in there, you see is going to be most beneficial to clients. One of the hardest things, though, is building an audience in the Facebook group. If you don't know what you're doing, so something like I worked with a life coach, kind of gonna be doing something similar to you, however, their approach is, not that yours isn't, their approach is, scientific so they do energy coaching, but they have a little device which does blood measurements, looks enzymes in your blood, it looks at proteins in your blood and various other things like that sleep patterns and to make sure that you're kind of, you know, working optimal kind of energy. They did a 21 day energy challenge. In their group. They did some Facebook ads and spent six; they are Americans, they spent $600 but they got 1200 people signed up. So 1200 new people into their Facebook group 900 engaged well in the challenge. And when they opened the Carter in terms of like their product launch and taking them the next cohort of clients that did $25,000 of business,
- That's incredible.
- 10 new clients. And we talked about price what you're charging. So I reckon you've got a great opportunity to do some kind of a five day challenge to kind of, you know, build up the audience in that group, and you put challenge down there just because I'm gonna need that space in a second. The other thing, which I think you could potentially be doing right now, as well, is getting your Google My Business listing setup.
- Okay?
- Okay, so Google My Business, what if you were to search for like life coach Cheltenham, you normally get a little map, and three people underneath. Some of them have reviews, some don't. So that little mapping section is called Google Places or Google My Business. And so what we want to do is we want to make sure that and by the way, Google works on trust. So the sooner you set that up, the more trust it's going to have.
- Okay, So I would recommend setting up a Google My Business listing right now.
- Okay
- Put as much information into it as you can. So you've got 100% of the little dial, which says how much if your profile is complete, make sure it's hundred percent complete. And then it loves reviews. Now, I know you don't have clients yet. But you've got friends, family, work colleagues, and people like that, who can vouch for you and say that you're a trustworthy human being you've been, you know, it's a pleasure to work with Jo in whatever capacity is, they might not necessarily be able to vouch to your coaching ability yet. But to go out and get 10 reviews as quickly as possible, so that you've got a bit of another bit of real estate, which is that it's free. You can do it very quickly, and it and it will just speed the process up. So when you're ready with your programme, it's you know, you've got some assets already built there.
- Perfect.
- So Google My Business, I would definitely do that sort of straightaway. The group definitely get that up and running. The challenge might take a bit of planning to be could launch that, you know, soon enough.
- Yeah, well perfectly, I've just signed up for a five day, set your Facebook group challenge up, set your Facebook group up challenge. So I can do that alongside.
- Great, that's perfect. So we've got a couple of other steps, which I'm starting to kind of this, this is going to be your your customer journey, I'm running out of space here, I need to move some of this down. Here we go. So, like I said, it looks a little bit like a house. But once we've kind of used the marketing assets, the first step of it to attract our audience members in there. And I'm going to talk about your audience in a second because I was a bit worried about your avatar and how specific it is so we will come on to that. The idea is that once we kind of attract them, you know, with something some kind of offer at the front, we've given them a tonne of value, they can see what we're about. You've got the book as well, that's another asset marketing asset. When that comes out. You've then got to start. So then like you've got now you've got a corral a big group of people, we've actually then got to start to narrow it down and work out whether they are going to be good clients or not. So there'll be some form of assessment or quiz or diagnostic that you need to run with people. Okay. So when I, when I first started out my coaching practise, and I was going to share mine, because I've got, I don't mind showing this at all. And I still have this button in a, like an online form. So I mean, this is an assessment form for business coach. Okay, so for me, obviously, and it talks about the basics of kind of what should work life balance like, what should you have a business plan? Which product clarity, have you got your pricing nailed, you know, so it's like a 20 point checklist.
- Yeah,
- You could potentially with your clients start to create a 10 or 20 point checklist as to the things which you're going to Helping them with. So confidence, energy, passion for life, work life balance, you know, you name it, you could, you could come up with your 20 criteria, and then simply get your prospective clients to market themselves on a scale of one to 10. Now, obviously, if somebody is writing down their 10, out of 10, for all of them, they probably don't need your help. Okay. But if we start to see some of these scores that are low, for example, what I'm looking for, especially because my focus is always on product pricing, and sales, I'll be looking at this and going well, if that they could be 10 out of 10 for everything else. But if products pricing sales are low, I'm like, bang, I can help you straight away, I can add enormous value. And it starts to give me a bit of information about the client and see whether it's a good fit or not. Make sense?
- Yeah. = So you could you could create a very simple your version of this, but a very simple, you know, assessment form can start to kind of break down and work out whether a client is going to be a good fit or not. The other thing is, well as you start to raise your and this this page is relevant here, as you start to raise your profile, and get busy and your books out and you've got loads of people coming to you, you need to start to think about kind of automating some of this process. So as they as they shift from, you know, step one marketing assets through into, Hey, Jo, actually, I'm really interested in knowing a bit more about what you do. And you're going to want some kind of automation in there. So a very simple way to do that is just have like an online booking form. So there's tonnes of different ones. There's acuity schedule once and calendly. My favourite is acuity scheduling, which is one which you can see here. It's embedded in my website. So it's like a really simple website address to type in, say fearless dot biz for slash app, people can book into my diary for a free consultation. It's linked up to my diary on my phone.
- Okay,yeah
- If somebody books on here, it blocks out the time on here and my wife doesn't get pissed off with me. [laughing]
- Which is quite handy and vice versa. If I booked something on here, it automatically blocks out here. One of the best things about this is though, there's also a little bit more of an, you know, a more detailed application form as well, but a background about their business, but most importantly, what's the current revenue? What are their goals? Are they committed to actually making those changes right now? How soon can you get started? So it's more of some of those buying sorts of questions. So the most important thing though, is we want to be getting get starting to gather information about our prospects and booking them into a consultation.
- Mh mm
- Now, so that it's clear, we can start to also then get a gauge for how much activity we've got to do at each level in order to start to sell our core products. So typically, between these two bits here, you want 70 applications or conversations as I call them, and you want to be booking 10 consultations with prospective clients in order to sell to, have your core product. So at the moment, so let's just think about this. So you've got your, you gonna have an online course. But your core product is going to be let's, let's say for argument's sake, it's a 90 day programme.
- Yeah.
- And it's going to be 1500 pounds.
- Mh hm
- Okay? So a good conversion rate there is somewhere between one and five and one in three. If when you start enrolling clients, your conversion rate is higher than one in three, that tells me that whatever price point you're selling at is too cheap.
- Okay,
- Doesn't make you a good salesperson. Normally, it's because you're too cheap. So that we can use that as a guide as to how much you can start to sell your core products app. Does that kind of make sense? Yeah.
- Yeah perfect sense. But the bit the bit where and there are just to kind of complete this. I'm not going to go into too much detail here. You'll see a couple of blanks you also have something called a fallen product. So this could be maybe somebody goes through and does your 90 day programme, for example. And they might then just continue with your coaching at 500 pounds a month. Yeah. So what we've what we're starting to do is build up something called customer lifetime value. So you've got your front end product, your 1500 pound 90 day programme, you've got your back end product, which is then ongoing coaching.
- Mm hm
- So if you if you're working on a one to one basis, now, it might be that when your 90 day programme is online course plus a one to one coaching, group coaching, right, but you may also just be able to sell the courses. And you can sell that, I don't know, let's say 249 or something like that. So people could just dip into that DIY. Do it yourself. And and that's all they need. They get the result. They don't need your help anymore. Great. tickety boo. Yeah. And the final part of this is then what we call social proof. So this goes hand in hand with Google, Google My Business but includes things like case studies, [murmuring] testimonials,
- Mm hmm
- and definitely includes reviews. So, your three for free, which I definitely think you should do is actually mostly about building out, you know, the social proof aspect that we've got down here. So if you're going to do some work with somebody to get just to test out your coaching programme, see what sort of results you get, what sort of problems challenges people are facing, and give it to them for free, but say Would it be okay, if once we've worked together, I can get a case study from you? Could I do a quick two minute interviews in which we use as a video testimonial? And would you mind leaving me a Google review?
- Mm Hmm. So again, that then leads back to our marketing assets.
- Yeah, how would you recommend me putting out there just put it out on my Facebook page and say, oh, exciting news. I can offer three of you an hour's session for free, because like what I don't want to do is go by doing what I'm doing. So I need to practise [laughing]
- Hang on, let me just I'm gonna have to come back because we're gonna have to catch in there. So no is the short answer. So probably the people you're speaking to are much more sophisticated than that, hey, come and buy my stuff or even if it's free, I've got some something exciting to tell you. What you should be doing is when you're putting content out, make it highly valuable. So today, I'm gonna be giving you some seven tips on how you can, you know, reignite your passion for x, y, Zed for life, go through the seven tips. And what'll happen is you'll get a little box underneath where people like, comment and share. And what that, you know, there's no currency in that necessarily, but it's a bit of an indicator as to like, the fact that people like your content. So if somebody is in there going, Oh, my God, this is amazing. This is going to transform my life. You could just drop them a quick personal message and say, Hey, Sharon, thanks so much for commenting on my posts. What was it specifically you liked about that post? Oh, by the way, hey, listen, and you know, I'm going to be launching my programme soon. Would you like a free consultation with me? There are a couple of caveats to that. If it's okay with you, it's totally free. It'll be a full, you know, one hour two hour coaching session. But what I need you to do after that is a case study review testimonial. Yeah. So you don't announce it you put some really valuable content out there, get some engagement and then highest engages you get to do the coaching, you invite them to do that coaching session with,make sense?
- Yeah. That makes sense.
- Because otherwise, like people just you know, you'll get you'll get all the freebie hunters and the tyre kickers who will just go for any free thing, basically, if that makes sense.
- Yeah.
- Whereas actually what you want is people who actually need help.
- Mm hm
- Yeah, it's a bit like if you go and ask, you know, rubbish analogy, but imagine if you go and ask your mum for some advice on something, or better still, you're going to ask an encyclopaedia salesman, whether you need Encyclopaedia, of course. they're gonna say yes. So we've got to it's part of this qualification process, I think which you need to refine. So we talked about having some kind of an assessment form in place, we've got the marketing assets, which are building great. We've got some kind of an assessment process in place here to start to qualify people in or out. And one of the, you can build a really simple assessment form. And I call it a qualifying matrix, which is exactly as it sounds, it's just a two by two box. So give me give me two things that two things that either your ideal client struggles with more wants to get a good you know, what would be a good result for them or tell me Just tell me something about, you know,
- Your perfect client, and they're unhappy.
- Okay. What else
- Can't think I know all the answers. I think a job that they love and
- career like I can, yeah.
- Career.
- Career. is let's just go with no and yes. So we'll assume that what we mean by that is, yes, they've got a good career that they enjoy. No, they haven't, you know. So what this looks like basically is they might have, if they've got no career and they're unhappy, we've got a bit of a problem. It's more than likely that you can probably work with them.
- Mm hm
- Right? If they are, let's do some different colours here. So green would do amber next. It might be that maybe they're happy, but they're like generally in life, but their careers not fulfilling. Okay? So this is still a tick, we could potentially work with them, but we've only got one area to work with. It could be that they've really done I've done that in the wrong way. I think, haven't I? no, I haven't. So it could be that really deeply unhappy, but actually, they're in a job they love. Yep. So yes, we could potentially work with them because we can make them happier. However, if they are really happy, and in the career, which they love, we probably can't work with them, because they're already there, if that makes sense.
- Yeah So this is just a simple way of working out when somebody comes to us with a set of problem or problems or challenges or something like that. Starting to identify whether they're a good fit for our business or not. So when I was asking about your, and I'm going to split the screen down here, your perfect client, what did you say your avatar?
- I said someone who was maybe kind of perhaps a middle aged woman who's got to her stage in life where you know, a lot of challenges she hasn't perhaps quite confronted them all. She's unhappy, unfulfilled feels like she's just existing rather than living wants to be kind of lit up from the inside wants a sense of purpose, a passion for something. If you could, if you could put a name, a banner, a sticker, or whatever, that encapsulates what you've just described in one word, what would that be?
- lit up on fire. I don't know.
- The antithesis, the opposite
- oh the opposite um,
- Down, dejected, depressed unhappy.
- Cool. divorced or divorcing? relationship problems.
- Yeah, single parent.
- Love it.
- So when we talk, the reason why I wanted to do go through that little mini exercise there was because when you talk about middle aged, unhappy middle aged women, [laughing] Women, I would say that and Jen people generally I would say that nobody has ever really achieved their full potential. It's so rare that you meet somebody who has just got everything absolutely sorted out. So kind of what you've said to me there is everybody is my avatar. If you target everybody you target no one.
- Yeah,
- That's why we've got to drill it down and be much more specific. So actually, it could be that what we're going to focus on is single, single parents but single mums in their 40s. And we could go Is there anything that we could go even more specific on that with that probably be give us enough information, I think to get started with because probably what you've done is you might narrow it down from say 70 million people in the UK. Middle aged women probably now you're down to about, I don't know 8 million. You narrow it down even further into single mums in their 40s. Now you're down to like 10s of thousands Or hunt, like low hundreds of thousands. Okay, so and also think about it this way, Jo. If I were to say something to you like, so I'm a business coach, I help business owners to grow their businesses. That's statement one, Statement two, I help female want to be female coaches in their 40s to start up their coaching practise and grow it to 100 K, which one resonates more with you?
- The latter the most specific one
- The latter because it's super specific, like I'm talking about, I could be talking about you or, you know, so we've got um, when you start to kind of put your marketing message out there. You've got to put your yourself in your clients shoes. Because other otherwise like what's gonna happen is they might read through your book and go this really resonates with me But I don't really know what to do with it next, if you're too if you're too vague with that message, whereas actually, if part of your map marketing message states that no, this is who you specifically work with, what will happen is, you know, 100 people might read the book. And the 10 people who fit within your niche super specific will go, oh my gosh, Joe's talking about me. And they're more likely to act. And the one thing which most people are really afraid of when they're niching is they're cutting out a massive chunk of the marketplace. Okay. Now, I'll just give you an example. So I work with a broad niche service client businesses, okay, who are charging time for money, so we're narrowing it down. So out of the experts base, but specifically coaches, consultants and freelancers. So when I use those three words in front of a roomful of people, all of the coaches, all of the coaches, consultants and all the freelancers kind of pick up their ears and they're interested. And then I start to talk about the problems and challenges which they have. So I'll say something along the lines of you are a coach, consultant or freelancer. And you're super intelligent, really bright human being you get, you've got an amazing programme, you get great results for your clients, your clients love you. But there's a couple of things wrong here. You're super busy all of the time rushing around like a blue house fly, trying to satisfy all these people. whilst you're not satisfied yourself. And at the end of the month, you check your bank balance, and you scratching your head wondering why there's not enough money in there to reward you for all of this hard work. Whenever I do that social pitch imagine the amount of people who come up to me afterwards and say, I did that once at a networking group for about 30 people and I got five bookings for diagnostics straight afterwards.
- And brilliant. Yeah.
- They felt like you were talking to them.
- Yeah, exactly. And everybody else, I don't mind alienating everybody else in the room because I'm clear on who I work with. So you've got to get to a point whereby you can articulate your value, your perfect client, and be able to step into their shoes and express their pains. In order to start to break down the barrier to attract them into your business, make sense?
- Perfect sense.
- Have you got any questions for me about any of that, at this point?
- Probably about a million. [laughing]
- I think you've covered. You know, as I said, I'm starting out so you you've covered the main things that that I needed as a real jumping off point and where to really start with this. And, and it's that kind of scrambling, isn't it rabbit in the headlights? I don't know which bits do first and I've got all these things to learn and to do. And it's just having a clear process and a vision, isn't it? About Where? Where to go first? Yeah, that needs to lead to.
- I think you're I mean, you're doing the right things in terms of building the audience now like the sooner and early you build that audience, the better. But I think one the one thing which is gonna, if I was to give you a piece of homework off the back of this, I think it'd be to sit down and write that assessment form out.
- Yes.
- So what what are the 20? What's your 20 point like, mot that you're going to be testing people against? And then, I mean, literally, when I did my first version of it, it was just business plan, empty space to write a number in products, empty space to write. And, you know, it's just a very plain piece of paper, just with these things written down in a word, Doc.
- Yeah. And, and that you can then start to use that to steer what content is going to go into your online course.
- Mm hmm.
- For each one of those 20 points, you may end up with a model which you use in order to coach somebody through a specific challenge.
- Mm hmm.
- So, for example, fulfilment could be the wheel of life.
- Yeah,
- I dunno if you've heard of that.
- Yes, I have, yeah.
- For sense of purpose. You could use Ikigai, they don't have to be your models. You could use other models, which you know, are already out there and adopt them for your business. I think come I think ultimately, because you're there's also an element of Life Coaching which crosses over into mindset. And I do wonder, I think my advice would be event Not right now. But eventually to get a coaching qualification. Something something like animus or the Coaching Academy, I think would actually be really good for you just to give you just to open the door to things like those various different sort of frameworks and tools which you could use in your business. But if you've got the power and the ability to help people now and start changing those now, crack on, like, do it, do the do the assessment form, design your programme, do the three for free, and you'll be flying, you'll be well away. That'll give you everything that you need.
- Brilliant.
- Cool.
- I would let you go now, I was terrified. But I think give me loads of practical things to go away and do. Well, thank you.
- Well that's the plan. But that's exactly what I wanted to do with the with the Fix Your Business series. I was going to say as well if anybody's watching this and they would like to take part. The best thing do is to hop on to fearless dot biz and find my email address and just get in touch with me and if you want to sit in the same seat that Jo sat in It's not scary is it Jo ?
- No it's not
- It's highly valuable isn't it Jo?
- You got tonne of value there?
- Its really really highly valuable and you've helped me know and honestly and yes I was scared to start with but you really you know that little chat we had beforehand [bell ringing]
- Really put me at ease, so ,I can't recommend it enough.
- There we go. So if you want to sit in the same seat Jo sat, not physically the same seat just saying because that'd be weird. It's in Joe's house. But if you wants to come on to Fix Your Business, just get in touch. But but that's it for now. So this is going to go, this is going out live on Facebook at the moment. We'll be uploading this on to the YouTube channel a bit later on Jo, but I just wanted to say thank you ever so much. I'm really grateful for you taking the time out to be a guest on fix your business.
- Oh, thank you. It's been such such high value for me in my you know certain of my journey. So thank you. Cool. It's a pleasure.
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