The 6-Step Plan for Growing a Successful Coaching Business

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If you’re thinking about starting a coaching business, it’s an intelligent choice. Many people have felt the need to help others, especially during a pandemic filled with isolation and uncertainty — and the numbers show this industry’s potential.

Coach Foundation shared that the estimated market value of the U.S. coaching industry increased from $707 million in 2011 to $1.34 billion in 2022. That’s an astronomical increase over eleven years. There’s no doubt that the market is rising rapidly.

But the real question is, how do you scale your business to stand out from the competition? Scalability comes with patience, careful planning, measurement and adjustment. I’ve laid out six steps you can use to scale your coaching business effectively:

1. Pick a coaching model and style

Picking a coaching model will help you focus on what coaching style, pricing and target audience you’re going for. Models include:

Private coaching: Also known as one-on-one coaching, private coaching usually entails one client attending weekly or bi-weekly sessions with a coach.
Group coaching: This is where you coach people in groups. It is more scalable than private coaching, as more revenue is generated for that single-hour session.
Business coaching: This is where you are brought into a business, and your job is to help coach employees for specifics, like leadership coaching.
Online coaching: This is one of the most popular ways to coach today. Simply sign up for an online course platform, and coach people via live stream.
In-person workshops: This is where coaches speak at conferences or host coaching workshops.
Hybrid coaching model: A popular choice. Coaches use two different coaching model types together. It’s quite common for coaches to use online coaching and workshops as their hybrid coaching model.
Selling products: Coaches create products and sell them via the web. This can be anything from an on-demand coaching course to a whitepaper, book or guide.

2. Find your niche and make this your focal point

Harvard Business Review shared an interesting note on coaching. It’s the bridge between consulting and therapy. Coaching is about focusing on the future, improving performance, achieving goals and helping people discover their path and purpose.

Because coaching has so much to do with personal and/or business goals, it’s important to share what coaching niche you want to fall under. There are a few questions you should ask yourself when trying to establish your niche:

What is your passion?
Have you gone through an experience that you think others will relate to?
What are you good at?
What problem are you attempting to solve?
What do your friends and family think you’re good at?
What do you love doing?
What do you think people will pay for?

3. Find your target audience

Your niche will determine who your target audience is. It’s an important step to identify your target audience, because it will show you what type of messaging you should use to speak to this group of people.

People like personalization. They want to be spoken to as individuals and interact with coaches with relatable experiences and stories. Your target audience should be identified according to criteria such as demographics, experiences, hobbies, interests, goals, etc.

4. Craft your offering and sales funnel

You want your audience to visit your website and understand who you are, what you offer and how much it costs. You can achieve a tidy and streamlined sales funnel by using landing pages on your website. Each landing page should share information about a particular service, so your audience doesn’t get distracted. Users should be able to sign up then and there.

5. Advertise

This is where scalability can start getting expensive. But you need to drive traffic to your dedicated sales funnel landing pages. You can do this by using any of the following proven advertising methods:

Facebook and Instagram ads: Use this affordable way to start growing an audience on social media as well as driving traffic to your website. It’s a great way of getting your brand and name out to the masses.
Google AdWords: This is a suitable pay-per-click advertising method if you’re targeting specific keywords. For example, “interview coaching” or “spiritual life coaching courses,” etc.
Email marketing: Once you build a client database, it’s a good idea to send out regular emails about your business. Try to use email as a tool to upsell, promote your blog and share more about yourself.

6. Automate as much as possible

The last step is about investing in a high-quality online coaching platform that will allow you to automate many of your tasks. Some of this automation occurs by using:

An automated email sequence to new clients
Calendars to book your appointments, which are embedded in your online coaching platform
Online coaching software that is already integrated with Zoom
Integrated ecommerce capabilities within the coaching platform, so all your merchandise and shipping information is in one space
Automated reports on a weekly or monthly basis

Coaching is an industry that has so much potential, and the best part is that anyone can do it. If you’re looking to scale up quickly and efficiently, follow the steps above, and remember to invest much time in planning.

Like many other projects we have in life, if you plan and stay ahead of the game, you’ll attract the right type of clients and stay relevant. So, look at your resources, invest in automation, and take the time to be as niche as possible. People love personalization and interacting with coaches who make an effort to stand out — it’s time to push the boundaries.

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