Wendy McCallum (00:38)
Hi there, welcome back to The Coaching Edge. I'm your host, Wendy McCallum. We're to talk today about some of the answers to the most frequent questions that I get from newer coaches about building their businesses. So I think this is going to be really packed with all kinds of helpful information and tips for you, whether you are just launching a coaching business or have been trying to build something for a while now and feeling like you're not getting the traction that you want.
or aren't able to scale in the way you wanna scale. think listen to this episode, you are going to find that there's something for everyone in it. So these are some of the questions that I hear over and over and over again in the work that I do as a business coach for coaches. I have, as you are probably aware, a large community of coaches that I support weekly inside my business building bootcamp. And these questions come up time and time again in office
But there are also the types of things that I've supported coaches on one-on-one and that I just hear generally in the circles that I'm in from other coaches who are working hard to try to build businesses. It's a hard slog. It is a hard thing to build a business. And I know there are lots of people out there telling you that it's really easy and it's just do this one thing, follow this one strategy, create this one funnel, and you're going to have a six-figure coaching business in a year.
I am here to call bullshit on that, to be honest, and to tell you that it's absolutely doable, but that you need to approach it with, I think, a real lens on building a business and also, you know, be kind to yourself because you can only do so many things at once.
Again, hopefully you'll find this to be helpful today. My guess is that at least one or two of these questions are questions that you either have had or still have around the business of coaching. So let's start with this one. How do I find my first paying clients? So if you are a coach and you're just starting out, you don't have any paid clients yet, or maybe you are a newer coach and you've had stints where you've had a few clients on your roster, but right now you're
really at a low, maybe you don't have any paying clients or you're just looking forward and thinking, know, come next month, I'm not gonna have
more
Here are some of the many ways that you can wrestle up paying clients, especially if you don't have a big social media following or a large newsletter list yet.
And these are all covered by the way in the free masterclass that I talk about a lot on this podcast that I hope you have by now accessed. If you haven't, you can go and grab that anytime. It's like 10 ways to get new clients without a big social media following and or newsletter audience. So for more detail on these things that I'm gonna talk about right now, please go and download that free masterclass. I'll make sure that the link is in the show notes for that.
But some of the things that I talk about in that masterclass include starting to pitch yourself to be on other people's podcasts. I think this is one of the best ways to get clients. every time I'm on someone else's podcast led to at least a couple of paying clients, sometimes significantly more than that. I can think of a podcast that I was on a couple of years ago, three years ago, maybe, that basically filled my practice for two months straight with one-on-one clients because it was such a popular podcast.
Pitching yourself to be on other people's podcasts is a great idea. Now there is an art to the podcast pitch. As a podcast host, what I would say to you is make sure that it's not too salesy and that you're not suggesting that you come on and talk about some offer that you have. What you wanna do is you wanna look very specifically at the podcast that you're pitching.
what the audience is, what topics have already been covered and not been covered, and pitch something to talk about that is within your wheelhouse, pitch it in a way that you can distinguish it from other episodes that that podcast host has already aired. And then also make it clear how you think this particular topic is gonna be helpful to that podcast host's audience. Get really specific about that. I think this will be of real interest to your audience because...
and then XYZ, list those things. You wanna make sure that your podcast pitch also talks a little bit about you and makes it clear that you're an engaging guest. And if you have some examples of other podcasts that you have been on, you can provide the links for that. I would usually not go and listen to that as a busy podcast host, but some podcast hosts might wanna get a taste of that.
And at the very least, shows that you are somebody who other people have thought would make a great guest for podcast. So that's one really great way to do it. You can start doing that without any social media following, without any list. Just start looking on your podcast host platform that you use and start searching by topic. Look for people who have a different focus in their coaching business, if they're coaches or in whatever.
their podcast is sort of focused on, but at similar audience, right? So if you support women around drinking less in perimenopause and menopause, look for somebody who's doing a podcast on menopause generally, but who is not specifically focused on alcohol, for example. So podcasts, great way to do it. Starting a podcast, also a great way to get paying clients, but that is something that I don't generally recommend people do right out of the gate.
I would also say you can do live presentations and workshops if you didn't listen to the episode that was specifically about how to use presentations, workshops, and live events as a way to market your coaching business, go back and listen to that episode. It's a recent episode on the Coaching Edge in this season. Live workshops and presentations are a great way to get paying clients. And again, you can do that at
at like your local library or community center, you can offer a presentation at your children's school or with the parent organization or at your past place of employment or your partner's place of employment or your best friend's place of employment. There are ways to get in front of a group without having to leverage an existing social media network audience or newsletter list.
And that will almost always lead to paying clients because it's such a great opportunity to build that like no trust and really spend some time with people. You can also get your first paying clients by asking the people who already like no trust you to support you and spread the word about you, right? So you may have an existing network from your last job if coaching is a second career for you.
Go and let them know what you're doing and tell them that you would love for them to help you spread the word. And if they know anybody who might be a good fit for your coaching services, that you would really appreciate them referring that person on to you. Existing networks are a great way to get coaching clients. Also, if you have worked with other clients, maybe there were free coaching clients that you did during your certification or training, ask them if they know anybody who might want to work with you or.
it might be a good fit for your coaching practice. those are just a few ways that you can do that right out of the gate without a big following. And I know that all coaches struggle with that. And this is something again, we talk about constantly in the BBB, go and listen to that free masterclass. I really want you to spend some time in it's a 45 minute masterclass where I talk about in detail 10 different ways that you can do it. So I just talked about a few in that masterclass, I talk about 10, I'll put the link to that masterclass in the show notes.
The other question we talk about all the time is niching. my goodness. The amount of time we spend talking about whether people should niche down or should broaden their niche. It's a lot. It's a really common area of confusion for people.
you'll often hear sentiments like, you know, if you're speaking to everyone, you're not speaking to anyone. And I think that that's actually generally quite true. So people who just throw themselves up on the internet as life coaches have a hard time building their practice usually, because it's so general. It's hard for people to find them, first of all, and it is, when somebody gets to their website, difficult for them to know right away that they're in the right place.
I think the more clear you are with your niche, the better, but I also want to caveat that new coaches don't need to niche down right away. You just, don't need to do that. And also just a reminder, everything's a beta, everything's an experiment, your niche can change and it will change over time. So if you try an experiment with a narrower niche and it's not the right niche for you, you get to change that. But the answer to do I need a niche?
is yes, you need some niche. You need to niche a bit at the very least. So if you're a life coach, you need to say, who are the types of people that I want to work with the most? And what things in common do those people have? So it might be, well, I love to work with professional women. I love to work with working moms. I love to work with retired, it might be even more specifically, like I like to work with retired professionals.
or accountants or lawyers,
you do need to have some form of a niche. Just being a coach or a life coach is not gonna be enough.
the second part of the question
what if I do niche down? So for example, I work with professional women who are drinking too much to cope. That is mainly my niche
when it comes to the one-on-one stuff. And those women are often looking at making big transitions or changes in their lives. So I do a lot of transition coaching as well.
But I also work with men because yes, you can coach anyone.
And narrowing your niche does not mean that you won't still have the opportunity to work with people outside of your niche, you will. If they land on your page and your story resonates with them or they like your coaching philosophy or they can't find anybody who seems to be exactly the right fit for them, they're probably gonna schedule a discovery call. I have discovery calls and requests from men all the time and also from people, women who are outside of that.
specific niche that I generally work with. And I often end up working with them because they feel like a great fit. Because of course I can coach anyone on just about anything because I am a general life coach at my core. So you need a niche, keeping it too broad makes it really hard for people to find you. You want someone to get to your landing page of your website and think to themselves, I'm in exactly the right place. This person gets it and they help people just like me and
their solution or the way that they do that is exactly what I'm looking for. And if it's too broad, I help people find more joy in their lives as a life coach. That's a very general broad statement. People are gonna be far less likely to continue reading. So yes, you need a niche, but remember it's flexible. You can change it. You can niche down and then you can niche into something else. You can
outside of your
always. How much should I charge for coaching?
Incredibly common question. In fact, I would wager that at least once a week, I have this conversation about pricing with one of my coaches inside the BBB. I had it yesterday
where I was looking at somebody's website on pricing and they wanted an audit or a review of their proposed pricing for packages and programs. So it's really, really common to struggle with this.
you should be always asking yourself, am I in market? Is it too low? Is it too high? And is there a way for me to add value? All of those questions are things that you should be thinking about regularly as a business owner. I really encourage you to go and get the $37 one-on-one pricing masterclass that I've done. I'd say it's my most popular masterclass. People love it.
Almost every coach who reviews it changes their programs and pricing somehow after they watch that masterclass because of the way that I explain all of the considerations that need to go into your pricing that we don't talk about. Because if you are pricing too low, you are putting yourself at significant risk of going out of business. That's the truth of it. You will just not make enough money to continue. I think...
when we're setting prices, we're often thinking, my gosh, this works out to so much an hour. And if I was working with 20 clients a week, I'd be making, you know, $4,000
week at this pricing. I mean, that's
$16,000 a month. I'm here to tell you that actually $16,000 a month is not an outrageous amount of money to make because you're probably gonna be spending $6,000 in overhead, to be honest, to make that 16,000, like to get those clients to have 20 clients a week.
I mean, you have to be doing some serious marketing. That takes a lot of time and effort and investment to get to that place. So I would rather that you are pricing
an hourly rate, although we don't love hourly pricing and I'm always talking about how we need to price for value and the value of the transformation. But of course, we are always thinking about when we're setting prices, we're always thinking about what it works out to on an hourly basis for us as coaches.
You wanna make sure you set that at a rate that sets you up for a chance of success as a business owner. If you set those rates too low, you're gonna be in trouble really, really fast. So, watch the one-on-one pricing masterclass. It's only $37, it's the best value out there. It's gonna give you really specific examples of different ways to price and very specific examples of calculations that you need to be doing to determine whether your pricing is actually the right pricing right now.
and if not to change it. a really great question to ask yourself is what would happen if I raised my rates by 20 %? How would that impact my bottom line? How would that impact the amount of marketing and hustling that I need to do on a monthly basis? How would that impact my peace of mind? How would that impact my levels of stress and anxiety around making ends meet and actually making a profit in my business? What would that do for me and my business? Have a think about that. And if you're thinking, well, that would really change the game for me.
go watch that pricing masterclass
So how much should you charge for your coaching? I mean, it's such a complicated question. Again, it is, you there are market rates, there are dollar amounts per hour that I would say you should never go below as a coach. I generally recommend my new coaches in the BBB that they don't price below 150 an hour in their programs. I just think it's nearly impossible to build a business model that has any sustainability with less than that.
Now that's for private coaching. That is not for group coaching. Group coaching is like a whole other ball of wax in terms of how we price on groups. Okay, how do I market if I don't like social media? my gosh, I'm gonna do a whole episode on this. In fact, it might be...
it's either gonna be the next episode or the episode after this. this is such a common question. right now, I think people are incredibly anti-social media as a general rule. My coaches in the BBB are saying all the time that they wanna get off social media, they wanna use it less, they wanna be less reliant on it.
or they just really, really dislike being on there. They find it emotionally and mentally draining right now, which I get. It can be a really tough, toxic place to be. We've got a really difficult political world climate happening right now. So I get that. Also, it's a slow grow, even at the best of times, social media. So it's a lot of work for not an instant payoff usually.
And it is really important to build alternative strategies. There are other ways to build your business outside of social media. And again, I gave you three at the beginning of this podcast episode. also gonna give, I'll give you a couple more here now. I would say a really great freebie. So a really great valuable free offer on your website that you can start sharing is a great way to build a newsletter list.
which is then an audience that you own. It's kind of a captive audience and you can then direct, you can market to them directly with the paid offers. So that's always great, a really great valuable freebie. And then also, you know, really working on referrals. So getting out there and starting to talk to members of your community, other professionals who serve a similar audience or client base as you do. Maybe it's health practitioners in your area.
people who you can do some cross referring with. So you can ask them like, where's the gap in your business? How could I support your patients, your clients in this area? What is it that you find yourself looking for more resources and support around for your client base, patient base, audience base, audience base? How can I fill that in for you? Could I offer a presentation? Could I create a PDF for you? Could I come in and speak to your clients? What could I do to support you in that?
And you can get some good, often good cross referrals going there. And the other thing is like working on building SEO on your website. This is something we don't talk a lot about, but I think it's pretty important. I have a website now that generates refer, like I'm just self generating.
my own referrals basically, like people are finding my website through organic Google searches all the time. So one of the questions that I ask when people fill out an application to work with me is how did you come across me? How did you find me? They might say things like my old podcast or social media or through a Google search and Google search is hands down the most common answer. And that's because I have spent years consistently and diligently
creating new content, changing my website regularly, adding, I had a blog for a long time with my first podcast. There's now a blog that goes along with this podcast, The Coaching Edge. And that really serves to be putting new content that is carefully crafted and that is of relevant and of interest to my clients on my website all the time so that I am slowly moving up in terms of that organic traffic with SEO. So search engine optimization involves including
often searched keywords in the content on your website regularly and also updating the content on your website regularly. So there's lots of strategies around that. In fact, there was an episode of the Coaching Edge in a previous season where we talked to an expert in SEO. So I encourage you to go listen to that episode. Just search for it in the archives if you're interested in working on SEO, but that's another way to market yourself without social media. Do I need a website before I start coaching?
also a really commonly asked question. Or I guess to just a nuanced version of this question is how much of a website do I need? So I will often have people come into the BBB who have spent a ton of money and a ton of time trying to get a website up. And they've got all the pages in draft form. They've got a services page. They've got a group programs page. They've got an about me page. They've got a contact me page. They've got a free resources page. They've got a homepage. And...
They're not actually getting the website up live because there are so many moving pieces to it and it just feels so overwhelming to them. And they don't like it when I say to them, just start with your homepage. Build a one page website first. If you're listening to this podcast and you're about to launch a coaching business and you don't have a website yet, I really encourage you not to spend a ton of money or time on a complicated website yet. You don't need it in the early days. A one page website is a great place to start.
a simple landing page that tells people up at the very top.
who you help with what problem and in what unique way. So your banner up at the very top in a perfect world has a great picture of you, something that feels really like bright and cheerful and optimistic and hopeful. And then very clearly says, I help X type of people or group of people with Y type of problem by doing X, a Z, this with this very unique solution, right?
So I help busy professional women who are drinking too much, who are drinking too much cope stress less and drink less without willpower or deprivation. That's my statement in a nutshell. Have something like that up at the top of your page, then have a little bit about this is for you if, so that the person knows they're in the right place. Are you feeling X, Y, Zed? If you're feeling these things, you're in the right place. I can help tiny little bit about your story. I've been there.
This is my experience and I would love to talk to you more. I offer a free discovery call and then a button to book a discovery call that's linked with your calendar. That is legit all you need to start. Over time, you can add more pages. You can expand all of that stuff out to that website. But to start, you just need a simple one page website. We had somebody come in to the BBB last year and do a master class on one page.
websites for this very reason. She's a copy expert, a copywriter extraordinaire. She does my copy. I love her so much. She's so great. And her very strong opinion on this is that in the beginning days, a one page, a one page website is the way to go. Because over time, what's going to happen is you're going to experiment with your business. You're going to work with clients and you're going to realize, actually, my niche is a little different than I thought it was. Or I really want to create this type of programming. And your website, even if you
did get it all done with a million different pages before you launched your business, it's gonna change. And you're gonna be frustrated by that. Ask me how I know. I did exactly that. I made all the mistakes. I had a very complicated custom website built before I started practicing. It doesn't even exist anymore. It's gone through two or three different iterations. And I now have a website that looks so different from my initial website from 15 years ago. Even the name of my coaching business has changed. just...
Keep all of that in mind. You need a website, you really do, but you just need one basic landing page for your website to start. Should I offer free coaching sessions to attract clients? I mean, you can. I get asked this a lot too, like, should I do one free session? I think your discovery call should provide value. I've talked a lot about this in the discovery call episodes that I've done. So if you have a discovery call or like a free, you know, I don't love to call them sales calls, but oftentimes that's what they are that you offer to people.
include some free valuable coaching in that. Just give a little opportunity for that person to really see the value in coaching with you. Demonstrate your expertise as a coach in the discovery call itself. You can do that in five to 10 minutes. And I think that then you, in my opinion, then they know enough to know.
the value of the transformation for them because you've done your discovery call right, you've gotten them to clearly state what it's costing them to be stuck in the way that they're stuck right now. What would be available to them and open up for them if they were able to resolve this problem and move through this thing? What the value of it would be to them? And then you do a little demonstration of your coaching and you say, look, I can help you with this. And we can get you to that place where you feel the way you wanna feel.
here's what I propose, I'd love to work with you, what do you think? And then get them into a paid offer. So I guess overall I'm not into a lot of free coaching, no. But I do think it's important to include some valuable coaching in that discovery call just to really demonstrate your ability as a coach and the value of coaching because a lot of people know nothing about coaching when they get on a discovery call. I think in the early days of building your business though, there might be an exception here which is,
Some free coaching can be really helpful to build confidence and it can also be helpful to gather testimonials so that you then have some client feedback to put directly on your website and in your marketing materials. So there's a place for free coaching, but I don't love it as a permanent part of a business model, to be honest. Testimonials and social proof, so much to say about this as well, but...
How do I get them? A lot of coaches are like, I don't have any testimonials. How do I get those? If you are in that position and you have coached some clients already, whether those are paid clients or free clients, go back and get testimonials from them. Reach out to them directly right now and try to get some testimonials. The sooner you ask for a testimonial in conjunction with the timing of the coaching sessions, the better.
it's gonna be, and I think the more detailed it's gonna be.
The better practice going forward is to make sure that you have a structure in place that reminds you to ask for testimonials from clients before they leave you. My practice is to ask for testimonials at around the 11th session of a 12 session package or the fifth session of a six session package, because then I can follow up on that in the last session. So I have a form that I use and I provide as a template for my BBB members.
that is a testimonial gathering forum that helps me to get really great language that's very detailed and useful in terms of testimonial language that I can use on my website. I ask really carefully crafted questions, including things like, if you were talking to somebody who was on the fence about working with me, what would you say to them is the value of working with me? Or what would you say to them? There are a whole series of them that I ask.
And then I get permission in that form to use their comments in future marketing and also to do some editing if necessary for brevity and clarity. So that gives me the space then once they've ticked off yes to that to, you know, to shorten up the testimonial if it's too long and to take some things out and that kind of thing and just edit it for
you can never change the meaning of the testimonial, but.
getting permission to use it. And then also I get permission to use either their first name or their initials or their full name, whatever they're comfortable with. So I get all of that in a testimonial form, but I have a structure in place, a routine in place that reminds me to send that out to people and get that. And I do the same thing in the group programs that I run. It is built into the group programs. There are a couple of times during the course of the program that people get specific requests for feedback. The other thing though, and this is really the best way,
to get testimonials and social proof is to listen for it. So when you get a compliment from someone, someone says, that was such a great session, I loved that, my gosh, I got so much out of that, the value in that session is worth the price of this whole package for me. Say to them right away, I'm so glad that you had that experience and that this has been really valuable for you. Would you be willing to let me use that feedback in future marketing? I think that that would be really helpful for people to hear.
And they say, yes, then you could say, great, could I just write that up for you and send it to you
and then you can edit it as you see fit and approve it? Take all the work off their plate, do as much of it as you can yourself, because people just forget to do testimonials or see them as hard work. That's the truth of it. I know that I've fallen into that myself where I've loved working with somebody and I've said, of course I'll give you a testimonial.
and then they just leave it up to me to write something with no structure, no framework, no specific questions, and it just feels like a chore. So do as much of the work as you can for people. When you hear a compliment, get some positive feedback, ask right away if you can use that and capture
the other thing I would say with social media is if you get positive feedback on a post, so if you post about a program that you have and a past client comes in and says, this was the best program I've ever done in this topic, take a snapshot of that right away and keep it in a file on your phone that's called Social Proof. I have a file called Social Proof where I have like just tons and tons of screenshots that I've taken of comments that I've gotten from past clients, BBB members, like,
other people or even emails that I get from people. you can black out the bits of identifying information if you need to, but just keep all of your social proof screenshots in one place.
the confidence of coaching thing is another thing I get all the time.
how do I build my confidence as a
a
big question. The simple answer is by doing.
which is not what most people wanna hear. But the way to build your confidence as a coach is to get out there and coach. It's the only way to do it. It is not by getting more certifications and trainings.
Wendy McCallum (28:15)
one of the things that I hate to see is coaches getting more certifications and trainings because they are not
confident in their ability to coach. think that those things are completely separate for most coaches and the way to build confidence in your coaching is to actually coach. But a question that is kind of related to that is, do I actually need a certification? Do I need to go through the process of getting certified? Now, depending on what training you have as a coach, certification may be sort of automatic or it may be an added step. So some programs will train you in a coaching
approach or modality and then there will be a secondary piece that you can opt into which will allow you to be certified or if that program or training is ICF accredited then you may decide to go through the ICF, the International Coaching Federation, to get certified which is an additional process, additional expense, additional time. And some
Coach trainings don't involve any certification. So there's no certification that is given as a result of completing the training and there is no option to go get certified with the ICF because it's not a program that qualifies for ICF certification. So this is like, there's a lot to talk about here. The first thing I would say is that I believe in my experience, somebody who's been coaching for a long time and has done several different trainings and certifications.
and who has been coached by lots of different coaches that certification matters a lot less in most cases than people think it does. So the actual process of getting certified. I have worked with some tremendously powerful coaches who are not certified. And I have also worked with some really great coaches who are certified. I can also tell you that
I think once in my entire career, 15 years, been asked if I am certified and to provide information about my certification. So I've worked with thousands of people over the last 15 years and hundreds, I would wager, of organizations in terms of doing wellness presentations and that kind of thing. Only once has anybody ever asked me about my qualifications or certifications.
I think that that is a relatively universal experience. Now in certain worlds, it might be more important for you to have a certain certification. So if you're working in a very specific corporate environment, for example, or if you're coaching for an organization that requires their coaches to have a certain certification, this might be more relevant. But I think at the end of the day, what really matters is that you are well-trained and that you practice within scope.
I'm always gonna come back to those two things and I come back to those two things all the time when I'm talking about this with coaches. What really matters is that you're good at what you do and that you stay within the proper scope of coaching. You don't go outside of that. And what I mean by that is that you're not, you know, dabbling in giving health advice and being a health practitioner if you are not a health practitioner, which most coaches are not. So, you know, staying within the scope of
of your actual, your coaching world and making sure that you have good quality training for that. know, like coaching carefully basically, but also being trained. I do think it's important to have some training and to have some good training as a coach because I've also seen and heard of some coaches who are out there with zero training and who are, my opinion, not great coaches.
Some of them actually coaching and practicing dangerously and definitely practicing outside of scope. And because this is an unregulated profession, there's room for that, unfortunately. That's the downside to it being unregulated. So it's really, it's a complicated question, but at the end of the day, if you're thinking about getting a certification, ask yourself really like very honestly, why? Why is it that I think I need this certification? Is it because
I'm not confident in my own coaching skills. And I think that this certification is gonna somehow give me that confidence because unless the certification involves tons and tons of practice coaching hours, which some of them do by the way, which is great, it's probably not gonna give you more confidence just to get that certification. And, or am I looking at getting this certification because I think that my clients need me to have this certification.
Get really honest with yourself around that. What is this actually going to add to my ability to coach and coach well and provide value in coaching sessions? So not a simple answer to that question of do I need a certification and or another certification, but I think it's something that's talking about with some other coaches, maybe with a mentor before you make a decision to invest in a really costly certification or secondary training.
because coaches who can fall into this trap of just feeling like they continually need to upgrade and get more and more certifications and trainings struggle when it comes to making a profit in their businesses because their overhead is so high. So I just wanted to talk a little bit about that as well
hoping that there was something in that episode for everyone and that you learned a little something from some of the questions that I get asked most often from coaches who are looking for support around building their businesses.
Thanks as always for listening. If you are enjoying this podcast, please leave me a review. It is the most helpful way to get this podcast in front of other coaches is to give it a review. So just take a second and do that. I always love to hear from you too. I get messages from coaches all the time saying, I love this episode or I love listening to your podcast or I would love for you to talk about this thing that you haven't covered yet on the podcast. So feel free to reach out to me.
I really love doing this podcast and I'm very grateful for all of you who listen.
