Why Are Some Life Coaches More Financially Successful?
Louise recently passed her life coaching course. Empowered she was ready to take the next step and set up her own coaching business. The thought of getting paid to help others improve their life was the key appeal to Louise. The thought of being a self employed life coach, where you control your hours, your hourly rate and the amount of work you take on, creating the perfect work-life balance was also a key motivation in her pursue of becoming a qualified coach.
Several months later, Louise had only coached a couple of clients and many of these were friends or friends of family, she had rarely received any organic paying clients. Disheartened Louise had already started the process of looking for paid employment, going back to a job sector she hated. Why had it all gone wrong? The life coach course tutor had explained how the coaching sector is growing with more of the public paying for a coaching service. So where were these allusive paying clients? Why wasn’t any of these potential clients booking a session with Louise? Why was Louise’s coaching business making no money?
THE PROBLEM is, most coaches fail to be a financial success. To be a successfully self employed life coach, you cant simply be a good coach, you also have to know the key rules for making money as a life coach.
Louise’s 5 Big Mistakes
Louise made 5 big mistakes when planning how to make money as a coach. Don’t fall for these obvious mistakes or you will end up following the same path as Louise and returning to a job you hate. Making money as a life coach is easier then most people think, but often a new coach will fall into the same trap as Louise did.
Big Mistake 1 – Louise Set Her Hourly Rate Low
This may sound ridiculous! But the psychology behind this mistake has been proven a thousand times. People associate quality with value. The more you charge, the more you will be perceived as a quality coach and clients want to book sessions with coaches that they believe will be able to help them…quickly. If you are not securing many client bookings or you charge under £50 per hour you need to up your rates.
Louise to increase her bookings decided to out cost other successful coaches by only charging £20 per session. You thought that by lowering her hourly rate by 50% of her cheapest competitor that she will steal their clients. In actual fact a client wanting to pay someone to make a change in their life isn’t looking for a bargain, they are looking for an expert and we are all conditioned to believe that an expert charges more.
ACTION – check other coaches in your area and niche and ensure that you charge at least midway between the most expensive and cheapest coach.
Big Mistake 2 – Louise Never Niched
Don’t offer a general coaching service, instead specialize, become a coaching niche, and be known as an expert. People listen to those seen as an authority, and clients will often book the coach who specializse in their problem. It makes perfect sense – why pay the same money to a general coach who knows a little about everything when you can book a coach who is an expert in the field of your barrier?
To increase business Louise offered services for all areas of coaching; career, life, confidence, business, relationships, phobias, self-esteem, couples coaching, stop smoking sessions, make money, work-life balance, motivation, her list went and on. Potential cleinst only spend around 30 seconds viewing your website, they NEVER read all the text. To increase business, you are best specialising within a niche within a niche. This way when the client quickly reads your website pitch tey know within seconds that you can support them with their issue or barrier.
Niching also helps Google rank you higher for key words related to your niche – this is key for ranking high in the Google search engine (see – coaching business in a box for more information)
ACTION – Pick one niche and target your sales pages to this particular issue. When a visitor reads your website they should know within seconds what service you offer and how it wil benefit them
Big Mistake 3 – Louise Only Made Money From Coaching
Its simply not enough to make money through your coaching service – the maths doesn’t work! Instead you need to generate a second income by doing nothing, making money while you sleep, creating self generating profits. This is the secret that successful coaches keep close to their chest. Use affiliate schemes such as The Coaching Business in a Box to generate money to pay your overheads while giving you a nice profit, as this leaves the money you generate through coaching as pure profit.
Louise only offered a paid coaching service on her website. Even a busy coach cant afford to only make money from coaching – if you follow this model and you become ill, or a client or two cancels you will start to lose money. A second income generated through affiliate schemes or e-products is key, as website users from around the world can purchase goods when your with paying clients, when you’re asleep or when you are on holiday.
ACTION – join an affiliate scheme such as the coaching business in a box and add affiliate links on ever page of your website and blog post to increase sales.
Big Mistake 4 – Louise Didn’t Offer Discounts For Bulk Sessions
Psychologist have found that the human mind automatically makes comparisons at a speeding rate. When a client looking to book a sessions see’s the cost per session they will automatically compare this to any “bulk offers” working out the amount of money they will save. You see this all the time in supermarkets “buy 1 get 1 half price” This is a proven tactic that works.
Louise simply offered a one price per session. When the potential client wanted to book a session they simply though “I will book one session and if I like it I will book another” Without a discount for bulk sessions, rarely will a client book multiple sessions in one go. With a multiple session price you will increase session bookings, profit and you will have more sessions to support your client with.
ACTION – If you don’t already start to offer bulk discounts and watch as your bulk session purchases increases overnight.
Big Mistake 5 – Louise Lost a Third Income Through Adsends
Another way to make money while you sleep is through Google Adsends. You may have seen these on the millions of websites you visit. Google will advertise products and business on other peoples websites. Every-time a customer clicks on this advert (known as Google Pay Per Click) Google get paid – this is how Google makes their money. If you allow Google to advertise their pay per click on your website through Google Adsends you will receive a percentage of the money Google earn
Louise’s website did get visitors but rarely did they purchase a coaching session, mainly due to the reasons above. This is fine because their is money to be made from your website users even if they don’t need a coach. Google AdSense adverts will be targeted to that users preferences which increases the click through rate and with each click you earn more money.
ACTION – insert Google adsends into your website
Chris Delaney NLP Life Coach, Hypnotherapist and Career Advisor is available for booking for One to One Private Sessions, Group Training Sessions and Public Speaking Events
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