Use these proven strategies to get more life coaching clients and grow your life coaching business

Whether you’re a brand new life coach, or trying to grow your existing coaching business: Clients are the root of your success.

In this article, I’m sharing 7 simple strategies to attract your ideal clients and grow your coaching practice. We’ll cover:

1. Stop Selling Coaching Services
2. Attract New Clients with Free Events (do this over a freebie)
3. Adjust Your Mindset
4. Run Your Online Coaching Business Like a Casino
5. Tell Your Prospective Client What to Do
6. Connect, Connect, and Connect Some More
7. Stop Getting Distracted 
8. BONUS Tip: Learn a Client Attraction & Retention Strategy That Already Works

1. Stop Selling Coaching Services

One of the most common mistakes among coaches trying to build successful businesses is the trap of selling services. Marketing your coaching business isn’t about selling the services that you offer… 

Why? Because your potential clients don’t buy coaching services.

Your potential clients aren’t buying sessions, a coaching program, or products. They’re buying a transformation.

The very first step to finding, attracting, and booking life coaching clients is to nail your value proposition. The foundation for any of the marketing strategies you use should be the promise you’re making to your ideal clients.

Your value proposition (a.k.a. your promise) describes your ideal clients “before” and how you can help them get to the “after” they’re longing for.

Before you do anything else, you should be crystal clear on:

• Who you help (Need help identifying your target audiences? Click here.)
• What their specific problem is & how it impacts their life
• The solution you offer and how potential clients can access it
• How their life will be different after they’ve overcome their problem

Instead of trying to sell your coaching services to potential clients, sell the transformation and benefits they’ll experience!

2. Attract New Clients with Free Events

One of the simplest ways to attract new coaching clients fast is through free events.

Events like workshops and webinars give new potential clients the chance to:

• Connect with you face to face
• Experience the ways you can help them and the work you do
• Know, like, and trust you as a coach and an expert
• Experience a small result that previews the life-changing results they could experience working with you

The events you choose to get more clients as a life coach should be those that showcase the value you bring. They should also meet the needs and preferences of your target audience.

• Choose a topic that is simple and one that you feel comfortable running a workshop or webinar on. Make sure your topic addresses one of the specific needs or problems that your ideal client struggles with.
  
• When considering the location, length, and experience you’re creating, design your event to appeal most to your target audience. What would your ideal client prefer? Would they prefer an online webinar, a LIVE event on their favorite social media platform, or an in-person workshop?
  
• Aim to help your attendees solve a specific problem or experience a specific transformation. Use the specific solution or transformation you’re offering to name, market, and share about the event.
  
• Be sure every person leaves with clarity about your services and how to take the next step to work with you!

3. Adjust Your Mindset

Your mindset matters just as much as the tactical marketing strategies you use in your life coaching business. 

These three mindsets have played the biggest role for me as I built my own successful coaching practice:

1. Your Message Matters: There is a reason that you have the passion and the desire that you have to help others. No matter how many other coaches you come across, your story and your message are unique. The clients you’re meant to help will resonate with your work over anyone else’s.
   
2. What’s Green Grows, What’s Ripe Rots: Coaches who fall into the trap of believing they know everything have trouble attracting clients. Stay committed to learning and growing as a coach, and you will attract clients who are ready to do the same.
   
3. A Setback is a Setup for a Comeback: Everything you do in your coaching business is an opportunity to learn. The information you gather, even from the things that don’t go as planned, is valuable insight that can help you grow.

4. Run Your Online Coaching Business Like a Casino

One of the reasons casinos are successful is that they send their customers a consistent message at every turn. Every person who visits a casino experiences the same message in a variety of interesting ways.

To find coaching clients online, you should also strive to intentionally give each person who interacts with your brand a consistent message.

The more interesting ways you can create to showcase and broadcast the value you offer to your potential clients, the better.

And, the more opportunities your potential clients have to experience the value you offer for themselves, the better.

Create opportunities for consistent messaging and value-driven interactions through:

• Value-packed social media posts
• Free events, LIVES, and webinars that help your ideal client solve a problem or gain awareness
• Written content (blogs, emails, and guest posts) that offers insight and answers questions
• Clear next-steps throughout all social media platforms and your website
• Diverse, valuable lead magnets (freebies, e-books, courses, and downloads)

No matter how your potential clients interact with your brand, your message and value proposition should be clear and consistent.

5. Tell Your Prospective Client What to Do

Telling clients what to do isn’t usually recommended when it comes to the client-coach relationship. However, when it comes to how to get coaching clients, telling them what to do is necessary.

Many new and struggling coaches make the mistake of not telling their clients what to do next.

Be mindful that every social media post, blog, video, web page, or lead magnet has a clear call to action. A call to action is the next step you’d like your potential client to take.

Calls to action can be:

• Like and follow for more content on this topic
• Click the link on my bio to get your copy of my free eBook
• Sign up for a free workshop on this topic by clicking here
• Subscribe to my email list for an exciting, free gift
• Visit this page to see if coaching could be the solution you’re looking for

All of these statements have one important thing in common… They each give a clear instruction for what a potential client can do next.

Every time you connect with your target audience, tell them what to do next, and more people will!

6. Connect, Connect, and Connect Some More

Understanding how to find life coaching clients requires you to understand how to connect with your target audience.

Effective marketing for a successful coach is rooted in connection first. Seeking to connect and build relationships with your potential clients is what will help them know, like, and trust you.

The more your potential clients know, like, and trust you, the more likely they are to invest in your services.

Every step of the client journey should give your potential client a chance to forge a deeper connection with you. 

From networking events to facebook groups, and Instagram LIVES to local meetups, get into the habit of asking yourself:

1. How can I use this as an opportunity to build relationships with the people I want to serve?
2. How can I genuinely connect with potential clients here in ways that help them know, like, and trust me more?
3. How can I best serve the people I’m connecting with right now?
4. How can I offer value to the people I’m connecting with right now?

7. Stop Getting Distracted

Knowing how to find clients for life coaching takes time, energy, and consistency. There is no magic solution or quick fix…but it can be so tempting to jump on every bandwagon you see that promises instant clients!

Many coaches get stuck in the cycle of trying every new thing they see online or following the many different paths they see working for other coaches, without the consistency and commitment to actually experience results before they switch to something new.

There are great strategies out there for getting more clients faster than any amount of disjointed effort will allow, but those strategies still require time, effort, and consistency. 

The truth is, getting more clients for your life coaching business takes:

• Clarity about who your target audience is and how you can help them achieve real results
• Creating opportunities to share value and create connection in the places your ideal client spends their time
• Diversifying the ways your potential clients can connect with your brand to know, like, and trust you more
• Consistently connecting with and serving your ideal clients as a way to build genuine relationships
• Consistent messaging and clear calls to action
• Results that provide social proof of the transformation you provide your clients

Many of these elements are built over time. Spend less time searching for new solutions and more time committed to marketing strategies that have already been proven to work.

Once the basics are in place, experimenting with new, exciting trends is something you can do without having to worry about what happens if they don’t work.

8. BONUS TIP: Learn a Client Attraction & Retention Strategy That Already Works

Success as a life coach doesn’t require you to come up with strategies that have never been seen before.

In fact, the most successful life coaches almost always rely on proven approaches to grow their businesses.

They understand that spending time on trial-and-error, when solutions already exist, prevents them from helping more people.

At Brave Thinking Institute, we’ve trained and certified thousands of life coaches. Both our faculty and many of our coaches have 6-, 7,- and even 8-figure coaching businesses.

The reason? We equip each of them with proven coaching programs to generate consistent results AND our proven life coaching business framework.

You can get a glimpse into the powerful business-building framework we teach our certified life coaches! This step by step guide to a thriving coaching career will help you know exactly what to do to build a thriving coaching career.

Download your copy of the Thriving Coach Checklist today!

Implement the step-by-step strategies we’ve taught to thousands of successful coaches around the world- start here.