We are happy to share an article from our friend Sai Blackbyrn, CEO of Coach Foundation, ~ How Can You Establish and Ensure Success For Your Online Coaching Business?
Lately, there has been a lot of emphasis on the ways of adjusting, growing, and thriving in the new normal. But what actually is the new normal? Will we be constantly under the threat of another wave? Will this air of precariousness and uncertainty always prevail? When will we be sure about the return-to-normal routine? What challenges does this new normal present?
These are some basic questions among many others that come across our minds as we enter the post-pandemic era. Though it seems hard to decide whether we are living in the age of post-pandemic or pandemic-continuing yet we have adjusted our lives to much extent. But what about flourishing and outgrowing?
It brings us to the question of what areas are going to flourish in this new normal and which practices will become obsolete. To find the answer to this question, one should have a thorough analysis of the needs and wants of individuals in the post-COVID era.
In essence, people are in desperate need of determining a sense of direction that can lead them to the accomplishment of their goals. While new challenges are emerging, it creates the necessity of adept guidance and foreseeing future risks to drive the growth curve. This is where a life coach fits in.
What is life coaching and why its graph is on the steep rise?
A life coach evaluates the needs, desires, and aspirations of his clientele and helps them understand and eradicate the barriers to reach them. He is a result-driven genius committed to help people and motivate them to work for higher levels of determination and success.
In the recent past, its demand has been on a continuous rise owing to its life altering potential. Coaching has enabled people to reconnect, refocus and restart on their success missions. Life coaching consultation makes individuals learn how to find purpose and how to perceive obstacles as opportunities for growth. In addition, its absolute digitalization i.e. online coaching has helped people save their businesses, careers, health, and literally any troublesome aspect of their lives, especially since the emergence of coronavirus calamity.
Online life coaching is a coaching business that is conducted over the internet through various means e.g. via emails or social media, pre-recorded lectures, or video conferences. Using digital media, you work with your clients to co-create goals and establish actionable plans for their accomplishments. As a digital coach, you help people in reshaping their journey according to available resources, finding new ways to transform and alter their old patterns, fine-tune their performance, and finally make their goals happen, utilizing all that they got.
Among these tough and strenuously tiring times, life coaches throughout the world have helped their clientele to take new opportunities and find unexpected blessings in them that have emerged as a result of recent world events. That is why in-person coaching has stepped sharply down after coronavirus emergence i.e. by 80% while online coaching has risen by 74%, as per ICF’s Global Coaching Study 2020. According to an estimate, individuals and organizations make around 1.5 million coaching consultation searches every month that are mostly for life coaches, business coaches, and executive coaches. These facts and multiple others represent that online coaching has become the new norm and will have ever-increasing momentum, keeping in view the current scenario.
Now that it has stimulated the urge in you to join this noble profession or if you are already offering coaching services and want to switch to the online mode, this article is going to be your go-to resource.
Launching an online coaching business is much like the concept of entrepreneurship where your passion drives results and you take sole responsibility for flourishing your business. If you have the aptitude to learn self-development as well as the ability to make functional life-changing decisions, it is highly recommended that you take up life coaching.
By establishing an online coaching business, you can easily connect with clients from any region of the world using versatile digital tools. Thus, it provides huge growth potential for your coaching business that is far more expandable than staying offline.
How to start an online coaching business?
To start, you need to get life coaching training from an authentic source that can be a coaching coach or an institute after which you can get certified by fulfilling the requirements of the global life coaching body ICF (International Coaching Federation). Life coach training primarily focuses on determining the needs of your clients in view of their goals, current or past obstacles and helps them rediscover their potential to execute successfully. Even more, you can get first-class training from online life coaches from the comfort of your home and start your own business regardless of the profession you do belong to.
The Prerequisites
Treat it as a business
Once you get to qualify as a life coach (based on the evaluation and experience criteria of the life coaching certification awarding body), you should prepare yourself to launch it as a business. So, start with establishing an effective website.
Remember, this is your digital office so make it accordingly. Your website should be free from complexities, ambiguities and
Niche your coaching services
To be successful, you need to niche your coaching services and clearly define your specialty. A big mistake that coaches initially make is that they try to attract clients from the larger market irrespective of the individualized services they require. Specifying your niche is a prime factor that determines your coaching success in the long run and requires careful consideration.
The purpose of niching is to target the right clients and help them with their unaccomplished goals. The three main facets of determining which niche is feasible and profitable for you are:
- Are you strongly inclined towards your niche? Because your passion will be the driving force for executing critical matters of your client’s needs and wants. Moreover, your zealous approach will put you on a constant learning wheel to learn more about your niche and be more skilled in your services over time.
- Can you find enough clients in your niche to sustainably run your business? Does the clientele market often go through this problem that you are addressing? Are there sufficient viable solutions for these kinds of issues that you can incorporate into your coaching business?
- Does your niche sound effective that prompt the individuals to be your paying clients? Is the resolution of their issues remarkable enough to get them to pay you?
Pricing your coaching services
The next thing that largely impacts your coaching business is effectively pricing yourself. You can establish your coaching packages based on the session durations such as per hour or based on the outcome of coaching sessions.
Pro-tip – the latter method is more viable and effective because your clients are less likely to happily pay by viewing your coaching process or the session time. However, they will happily recompense for their desired outcome achieved after getting coached. Thus, the right pricing policy can help you attract and retain the right clients that will be eager to work with you long-term.
Effective marketing strategy
After coaching your worthy clients, you will get to read their mindset and offer them new products that can boost their progress exponentially. So, knowing your target market (current and prospective clients) and tailoring your marketing strategies is quintessential to run a profitable coaching business. Learn the right marketing mix and effective use of digital tools, so you can reach your target clients and create long-established connections with them.
To conclude, the post-pandemic era has presented itself with new marvels and opportunities disguised as challenges. It requires an in-depth insight to explore as well as adept guidance to follow new pathways. This has been successfully enacted by online life coaches who have helped millions of individuals in materializing their dreams.
Thanks to the modern digitalized world and freely available resources, we can learn and establish our online coaching business with minimum resources. The development and expansion, however, depends on us how we can grab the chances thrown at us in this new normal and leverage them for our and others’ best interest.
How does it apply to you in your life?
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