Leadership coaching is a powerful skill that facilitates personal development within a professional context.
The best part is that many companies are looking for this type of coaching to educate their teams and organizations. However, even if the demand exists, you may wonder how to get clients as a leadership coach.
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What is a Leadership Coach?
A leadership coach is a qualified expert who works with organizations, business leaders, CEOs, and executives to help achieve company objectives. They are well-trained and have the skills to guide organizational leaders toward greater levels of success. There are a few variations of leadership coaching, which include the following:
- Performance coaching: Clients come to leadership coaching for performance improvement all the time. It typically occurs after a poor performance review or if the client has been struggling with productivity and effectiveness in their work.
- Career coaching: Clients struggling to make a career shift may turn to you as a leadership coach for guidance and support. This form of leadership coaching helps clientele make logical, well-thought-out decisions regarding a job or career change.
- Change management: Change is a constant in every aspect of life – the workplace is no different. As a result, change management is a form of leadership coaching in which you help clients adapt to transitions within their workplace or organization.
What’s the Difference Between a Leadership Coach and a Business Coach?
Both leadership and business coaching are used to boost performance and productivity within a professional context.
However, stark differences exist between the two coaching styles. For example, leadership coaching develops the management and organizational skills of business professionals. Conversely, business coaching helps entrepreneurs, influencers, and business owners create strategic plans for business success.
Leadership coaching develops the individual, whereas business coaching focuses on organizational growth.
Actionable Strategies For Getting High-Paying Clients As A Leadership Coach
Attracting high-paying coaching clients as a leadership coach isn’t as difficult as it seems.
Yes, some groundwork will be required. However, once the initial heavy lifting is done, it simply becomes a matter of helping your clients get results. And the best part? All you need to make it happen is an effective strategy.
Here are 10 proven tips, tactics, and techniques to help you land high-paying clients as a leadership coach.
1. Use trust signals
Many clients hesitate to invest in coaching because they fear the risk of losing money.
This is normal, even natural. As a result, it’s up to you to ease that initial hesitancy. And the best way to do that? Trust signals. This marketing tactic means simply leveraging previous clients’ experiences as social proof to new clientele.
John Baldoni
Speaker, author, and leadership coach John Baldoni has done this well.
He plasters his site with numerous logos from prominent businesses and companies he’s worked with. This simple strategy builds his credibility and authority, fostering a feeling of safety in his potential clients.
The best part is that you’re not limited to website logos for your trust signals. You can also use testimonials, Google reviews, awards or certifications, and even recent milestones and accomplishments.
All of these trust signals contribute to putting prospects at ease regarding your credibility as a leadership coach.
2. Host virtual workshops and webinars
One of the most valuable online assets for attracting your ideal clients is virtual workshops and webinars. A virtual workshop can be compared to a digital classroom. It’s a teaching space where you, the coach, share your knowledge and expertise to help prospects overcome their challenges.
Conversely, a webinar is simply an online seminar.
Archana Shetty
Archana is an executive leadership coach who I helped stand out as an authority in her niche. Since then, she has conducted interviews, podcasts, and virtual workshops to connect with and educate her audience.
One of her virtual workshops (as seen below) delves into concepts such as the differences between leadership and management, how to lead remote teams, and how to handle stress and burnout.
Archana is the perfect example of using virtual workshops to educate your target market.
Here’s the deal: With the number of internet frauds, scammers, con artists, and imposters out there, people have (understandably) become more skeptical. As a result, they aren’t going to trust your leadership coaching until you first give them a taste of your experience.
Virtual workshops are the structures that bridge that gap.
They help potential clients quickly solve challenges, giving them a feeling of momentum, which then makes them curious about what else you have to offer.
It’s a domino effect.
3. Host a virtual summit
Virtual summits are larger online events that bring in speakers, influencers, and other leading experts to share their expertise and discuss industry trends. This is a powerful education platform that can put you ahead of the competition.
You can condense years (even decades) of knowledge into a single event by attending a virtual summit. And the best part is you can attend them from the comfort of your home.
Steve Olsher
Steve has been a great partner for Entrepreneurs HQ and an advocate for summits.
He expressed how virtual summits are a powerful way to scale from a five-figure business to a six-figure business. Why? Because you’re gaining proven knowledge and insight from experts who have been in your shoes.
But the most important aspect is that these individuals have surpassed those hurdles to arrive at a better and more lucrative position in their businesses.
The key lesson from Steve’s example is the importance of leveraging others’ experiences to accelerate your own success.
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Other coaches and entrepreneurs have already paved the way, and attending a virtual summit is the perfect strategy to profit from their insights.
4. Host a podcast
Podcasts are powerful mediums for communicating with your market, establishing your authority, and finding high-paying clients for your leadership coaching business. Many coaches turn to Instagram or LinkedIn to find clients. However, they often forget (or simply don’t consider) podcasting as a viable option.
Ruth Kudzi
Ruth is a trainer, consultant, and business coach.
She’s been making her rounds through the podcasting circuit, getting interviewed by various industry figures, and gaining credibility (and clients) as a result. Moreover, this strategy also allows Ruth to connect with other coaches, expanding her network and furthering her reach.
She uses her personal experience to create engaged audiences and grow her practice.
Ruth is a prime example of a coach using podcasts to grow their impact and influence.
The key takeaway from Ruth is to incorporate podcast interviews into your marketing strategy. So, decide to start your own podcast or be a guest on someone else’s. The best part? You can easily connect with hosts or find guests to collaborate with using podcasts.
You can send an email request, contact other coaches in your area, or simply start a podcast and invite figureheads within your personal network to share their insights.
5. Develop a unique brand voice
Coaches tend to check every box…
They set up their sites, establish their social media presence, and may even start building up their high-ticket sales funnel. Everything’s great, right? Not quite. Many coaches miss a critical element to business success: Their brand voice.
Every brand needs a unique expression that showcases its personality.
Whether you’re a health coach, executive coach, or leadership coach, you need a unique way to communicate and relate to your target audience. Your coaching niche takes a backseat to client connection.
It’s not the 1980s anymore.
Cold, corporate copy on your website, in your email marketing, and in social media content will not draw your ideal clients to your leadership coaching practice. You have to demonstrate personality.
You don’t have to be the next Tony Robbins.
You just have to be yourself in your blog content, digital marketing efforts, coaching engagements, and other activities. Successful coaches use their unique brand voice to create a personal style that connects with their target audience.
Betty Shotton
Betty is a serial entrepreneur and leadership coach.
She understands the importance of a brand voice. When you read through her site, you get a feeling of who she is and what she stands for. This is due to her distinct tone and style that reflects her personality.
In her About page, Betty uses phrases such as “toughen up,” “old-school, hard-core, tobacco guys cut me no slack,” or even “My risk-taking, out-of-the-box, independent nature.” This simple phraseology gives Betty a unique voice that is lost in the sea of coaches who get trapped in the boring but safe corporate talk.
Her About page gives you the feeling that Betty is a rough and tough woman who can hold her own with the “big boys.”
And that’s her unique brand voice. Her prospects connect with her distinct tone and vocabulary, and are drawn to her as a result.
What can you take away from Betty’s example?
Take the time to develop your unique brand voice. What kind of words do you use? How is your message conveyed through those words? What tone are you looking to strike? These are all essential aspects of developing a powerful and consistent brand voice.
6. Tell your story
Many coaches falsely believe that nobody cares about their story or will want to hear or read it.
As a result, they exclude it from their site and social media accounts. This is a big mistake. The truth is that prospects and clients want to know your background, what you value, why you do what you do, and so on. You foster a connection with your market through relatable storytelling.
Also, it makes you unique and memorable, separating you from the competition.
Christopher Lawrence
Christopher is a life and strategic leadership coach based in Canada.
He shares the story of when he became an avid believer in the power of coaching. When learning about the discontentment and disengagement most people feel in their lives, Christopher started his business with the mission of guiding people to higher levels of success.
The key takeaway from Chris’s example is to share your story.
You can post it on your About page to boost engagement, on Facebook to create relatability, or even on Instagram to attract clients. A powerful story captivates attention and creates trust and credibility – all of which are essential to gaining a high-paying clientele.
7. Self-publish a book
Writing a book is one of the best ways to boost your authority and attract more clients as a leadership coach.
It’s like a stamp of credibility on your brand. As a result, it could be the catalyst that attracts more of your ideal coaching clients. The only downside to writing a book is that it’s a time-consuming process. For this reason, you’ll want to ensure you have the bandwidth to add the project to your current workload.
But upon publication, you’ll have a foundational asset to your leadership coaching that will serve you for years.
John Maxwell
John Maxwell is a speaker, personal development specialist, and the world’s leading expert on leadership.
He understands the importance of sharing knowledge through books, as he’s written 130 of them. His latest publication (as seen below) is called High Road Leadership. It reveals how to take full accountability, do the right thing, and put other people first.
A major contributor to John’s success is his prolific writing career. Now, you don’t have to write 130 books to strengthen your authority and gain coaching clients. The idea to take away from this example is the influence you can command by having a body of knowledge available in a simple paperback.
8. Choose a niche
The coaching industry is saturated, so it’s critical to choose a niche.
While leadership coaching is a specialty in and of itself, you can take it one step further by choosing a specific industry to serve. You may feel like you’re limiting yourself with this approach, and that may be true to an extent when it comes to your potential client pool.
However, the truth is that you’re actually positioning yourself to attract better and higher-paying clients.
Ross Romano
Ross is a leadership coach who has niched down to serve the education industry.
He positions himself as an authority using this method. Not only does he specialize in leadership development as a coach, but he also serves a specific industry, which further adds to his uniqueness, credibility, and value proposition.
What’s the key takeaway from Ross’s example?
Apply this idea of niching to your industry and specialty. This approach to coaching creates a twofold advantage: You’ll find more opportunities to work with higher-quality (and higher-paying) clients, and you’ll become an authority in your specialty.
You essentially became a big fish in a small pond, which is great for client acquisition and effective marketing in general.
9. Dial in on the details
First impressions matter. The way you present yourself (and your business) plays a significant role in persuading prospects to work with you.
For this reason, you need to obsess over the details of your brand. Think about it from this perspective: Would you trust and want to do business with someone who still had a “hotmail.com” email, was inconsistent with their company “values,” or had no website or social media presence?
These are the “tiny” details that are not actually tiny at all – in fact, they are huge, glaring red flags. It’s important to tighten up these loose ends so your practice appears credible in prospects’ eyes.
Dr. Cassidy Preston
Dr. Cassidy is a high-performance and leadership coach who has nailed this concept.
Everything from his website to his social media handles conveys a clean-cut, professional image that communicates his credibility. Even if you’re not using social media to get clients, this concept still applies to other branding touchpoints you have.
And Dr. Cassidy has hit the spot with this.
His visuals are crisp and high-quality. His content is informative and to the point. His colors, web design, and copy all contribute to his brand in meaningful ways.
The lesson you can learn from Dr. Cassidy is to align all the pieces of your leadership coaching business together. Everything should be consistent. These are the tiny details that – once they are all dialed in – will form the complete picture that prospects can trust.
This is more branding than marketing. However, it bleeds into and influences your marketing efforts, which makes it an essential part of your business.
10. Remember “What’s in it for me?”
One of the best organic marketing strategies is to remember the phrase: “What’s it in for me?”
The people on the other end of your social media post, email marketing campaign, or YouTube Shorts are all asking that question. And unless you do a sufficient job answering it, they’ll most likely bounce. So, if you want more high-paying clients, you have to focus on delivering massive value to prospects at every touchpoint.
By operating with a client-first mentality, you’ll help leads see the value you can provide. This process streamlines audience engagement, relationship building, and the sales process.
Marshall Goldsmith
Marshall is an executive and leadership coach who understands the importance of a client-first mentality.
His website focuses entirely on the prospect: what they want, how he can help them, and the steps they can take to win. Many coaches use their sites as an opportunity to flaunt their credentials. While your site is a place to showcase your successes, it’s important not to let that eclipse how you can serve your client base.
Marshall uses his site to engage prospects by directing the focus toward them.
Take a look at his web copy.
It reads, “Ask me any question. Everything I know is available for free.” You immediately get the sense that Marshall cares and that he genuinely wants to help. The copy then directs readers to his AI site, where they can ask the chatbox any questions related to Marshall’s expertise.
This is a unique (and ultramodern) way to answer that age-old marketing question, “What’s in it for me?”
So, what can you learn from Marshall’s example?
Put your prospects first in all your marketing efforts. The best way to do this is to understand your target market’s needs, wants, desires, frustrations, pain points, and so on. Then, position your leadership coaching services as the solution to their problems.
Key Takeaways
Leadership coaching is becoming one of the most renowned niches within the industry. As a result, you can create a thriving business using leadership as your specialty. And the best part is that we at Entrepreneurs HQ can help.
We are the world’s largest group of online entrepreneurs, and we’re here to support you on your journey as a leadership coach. So, if you’re ready to start landing better and higher-paying clientele, then watch our free training on how to get coaching clients.