When it comes to building your online coaching business, it helps to find inspiration from what the best coaches do extremely well. In the plethora of online coaches out there on the “inter-webs”, it can be hard to distinguish who’s doing it right and ethically, and who’s full of crap.
So, what sets apart the best from the rest in the world of online coaches? What do the best coaches specifically do to build reputable brands that inspire people to work with them and achieve incredible results?
1. They consistently provide useful content
Anyone can put “Online Coaching” in their Instagram profile, and that’s evident when you scroll through most of the “coaches” on social media. The path to becoming a “coach” these days takes about as long as you can type out the five letters in your bio.
Instead of flooding your feed with self-indulgent selfies and pictures of all your meals, strive to provide content that is useful and applicable for the clients you’re trying to attract.
A general rule of thumb to consider before posting content is to ask yourself:
· Is this information immediately useful for people?
· Am I communicating it clearly enough for my clients?
If your content checks off both boxes, you’ll gain trust from your audience and will attract more people to your page.
By posting content that is useful for people, you’re providing your potential clients a “snapshot” into your ability as a coach. If someone uses the things you post for free and they love it, they’ll be incentivized to hire you because you’ve already established a level of trust.
Remember, you’re not just posting content to stroke your own ego or try to impress other coaches. You’re posting content to help people with high quality, directly applicable information. This is what will ultimately attract the kind of business you’re looking for.
2. They help people for free
Piggybacking off the idea of providing useful content, the best coaches always put out free information. What’s more, the best coaches often coach or have coached people for free. For a long time.
This is beneficial for a few reasons:
· It gives you experience. If you’re just getting into the game or have a client base that you want to grow, offer to coach people for free. Seriously. All the best coaches you look up to have done it. You’re not above training people for free, so get over yourself!
· It gives you a chance to show off results. Who wants to hire a coach that hasn’t shown they can help people achieve incredible results? No one! Think about getting a tattoo for a moment. Would you hire an artist just because they call themselves an artist? Or would you hire them because of the awesome work they’ve done on other people? Helping people for free will not just help them, it’ll help you gain some awesome marketing material (testimonials, progress pics, etc.).
· It opens up a referral system. Referrals, as you probably know, are the best. People come in already trusting you because you helped their friend or close family member. If you’re having trouble getting clients, start offering to coach people for free and do an amazing job so you can start getting referrals!
3. They speak on their clients’ level
The best coaches communicate in ways their clients will understand. They don’t use fancy lingo to try and impress other coaches or make themselves appear smarter than they actually are. They speak on their clients’ level.
This applies to their coaching practice as well as their content creation. For example, when giving their clients instructions on how to deadlift, they use cues that they can understand and use immediately.
“Push the car door shut with your butt when hinging.”
“Squeeze oranges under your armpits and make orange juice to keep your back tight.”
They don’t pull every anatomy word out of their ass to try to appear smarter than they are. They understand that in order to make change and help their clients, they need to communicate in ways that are easily understood and immediately applicable.
Bad coaches like to sound smart to try and impress their clients. The best coaches help their clients understand high level information without all the extra jargon.
4. They take all of the guessing out of their clients’ workouts
Your clients don’t have the luxury of seeing you in person as an online coach. So when it comes to delivering programs and workouts, you need to take the guessing out of everything by providing them with a system that is foolproof. Warren Buffet once said, “I try to invest in businesses that are so wonderful an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.”
Obviously, your clients aren’t idiots. But the best coaches provide programs using systems that anyone can understand and use.
This will save you time from going back and forth with clients, and eliminate the need to answer the same questions over and over.
5. They treat every client as a unique human being
Don’t forget that your clients are people, not just names on your laptop. Every person has their own unique goals, injury history, training history, personality, and capabilities. The best coaches take all of these into consideration when designing their clients’ programs.
Summary
Success leaves clues. Pay attention to how the best coaches approach their businesses and see how you can apply it to your own. In the words of Bruce Lee, “Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless, and add what is uniquely your own.”
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