Landing life coaching clients who can’t resist your high-ticket offers can feel like an uphill climb. I’ve been there, so I get it. However, you can begin attracting those dream clients by applying a few simple strategies. And the best part is that – with consistent effort – you can turn things around quicker than you think.
In this post, we’ll explore 12 proven strategies (with real examples!) you can implement today to get high-paying clients as a life coach.
The Types Of Life Coaching
Companies, corporations, sports organizations, thought leaders and even personal brands hire life coaches all the time. This demand means that there is almost unlimited opportunity for YOU. However, this comes with a caveat: You need a specialization.
Generalists usually can’t command the same prices as specialists. The good news is that there are many life coaching niches to choose from.
Here are some coaching specializations to consider for your business:
- Mental health coach: A mental health coach assists people with their emotional and mental well-being. If you’re passionate about guiding people through their trauma to lead mentally stable and prosperous lives, this may be the life coaching niche for you.
- Relationship coach: Life is about relationships – a huge part of people’s happiness comes from the connections they foster. As such, there’s a massive market demand for relationship coaches who can help their clients foster supportive connections with others.
- Financial coach: Money never goes out of style, and that’s why, as long as we use it for commerce, there will always be a demand for those who can help others manage it. A financial coach helps businesses and individuals to understand and, as a result, use their money more effectively.
- Mindset coach: Adopting an empowering mindset is essential to success in any undertaking. A mindset coach helps clients incorporate grit, persistence, and mental fortitude into their mentality.
Should You Get Certified As A Life Coach?
Life coaching is an unregulated industry.
This means anyone can call themselves a “life coach.” It’s not like being a doctor, psychologist, or therapist (which all require many years of extensive training and education). Is this good or bad, you may be wondering? Well, it depends on who you ask.
While there are some negatives to unregulated industries, I believe the pros outweigh the cons.
In this case, the pro is that it has a low barrier to entry. You can get life coaching clients immediately without any special training or qualifications. As long as you demonstrate your credibility and competence, you’re pretty much in business.
So, should you get certified as a life coach? That’s up to you. It’s definitely helpful, as it contributes to your credibility.
Numerous online (and legitimate) options are available. Here are a few suggestions:
- Certified Flourishing Coach: Certified Flourishing Coach is one of the fastest-growing life coaching certification companies in the world. It has certified thousands of coaches in many industries. With dozens of (evidence-based) training programs, its curriculum is backed by science in niches such as business, entrepreneurship, trauma, leadership, sales, personal development, and more.
- Transformation Academy: This life coaching certification company has served over 700,000 people in more than 200 countries worldwide. As a result, Transformation Academy is among the preeminent life coaching certification organizations. And the best part? They also provide budget-friendly courses if money is a concern.
- iPEC: iPEC is ICF (International Coaching Federation) accredited. Its programs offer some of the most advanced life coach training available. For this reason, iPEC stands as the best choice for getting the most bang for your buck.
12 Actionable Strategies For Getting High-Paying Clients As A Life Coach
You need the proper systems in place to draw the right clientele to your business. Luckily, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel here. Many coaches (myself included) have been in your exact position and have “broken the code.”
Here are 12 actionable strategies to land high-paying clients for your coaching services.
1. Use social media (strategically)
You’re leaving a lot on the table if you’re not tapping into the power of social marketing.
While finding coaching clients without social media is possible, your lead-generation strategy becomes easier and more efficient if you use some of these platforms to your advantage. And the best way to use social media is by creating valuable content that helps your target market.
Rhea Williams
Rhea Williams is a life coach who understands this principle.
In addition to her own YouTube channel, she has been featured on numerous social media platforms, giving free advice that helps improve people’s lives. As a guest on the TODAY and Jennifer Hudson shows, Rhea has delivered proven tactics to help people through major life transitions.
But notice that Rhea didn’t just start publishing random content on her own. Instead, she used the well-established platforms of others to elevate her reach. As a result, she has created trust and credibility with audiences that may not have otherwise known of her brand’s existence.
The key takeaway here is to use social media more strategically. Examples of this concept in action can include:
- Optimizing your profile: Whether you’re trying to get clients on Linkedin, Instagram, or Facebook, optimizing your profile with a professional bio, high-quality photo, and consistent brand fonts and colors is essential.
- Post consistently: You don’t have to post every day. However, you need a consistent posting schedule that works for you. Regularly uploading engages and creates trust with your audience. So, whether you post once a day or once a week, choose a schedule that works and stick to it.
- Listen to your audience: The more you post, the more you’ll gain feedback regarding what your audience is looking for from you. Listen to them. When you notice repeating questions or concerns, that’s a sign of the struggles they need help with and what you should deliver more of to your market.
2. Focus on your list
You don’t have a business without an email list.
If you put all your efforts into building your social media following but neglect your list, your business is on shaky ground. Why? Because you don’t own Facebook or LinkedIn. As a result, you’re at the mercy of algorithm changes.
However, your list is an asset that is 100% yours.
So, every coach should be focused on building, nurturing, and turning their email list into a high-ticket sales funnel. While this requires some upfront work, this investment in your business will pay off in spades down the line.
Katie Seaver
Katie Seaver is a life coach from Los Angeles who understands the importance of building her list. When you view her website, you notice she has an entire page dedicated to collecting emails for her Newsletter. People who come to her site can sign up to receive weekly tips and prompts to improve their lives.
The fact that she has an entire page used for the sole purpose of gathering emails tells you how important this step is. You can also include pop-ups or have a sign-up box on each page, encouraging people to sign up for your list.
The best method, however, should be to include all these strategies on your site.
From there, it becomes a snowball effect: More opportunities to opt into your list mean more sign-ups, which results in more prospects and, ultimately, more coaching clients.
3. Create a referral program
Want to know the best method for getting more clients? Leveraging your current clients.
Creating a referral program is a powerful (and easy) marketing strategy. Why? Because people are more likely to believe others who sing your praises than if you were to do it yourself.
All the heavy lifting is essentially done for you by your current clientele!
The only thing you have to do is provide excellent service and then ask for the referral afterward.
Entrepreneurs HQ
To give you an idea of how you could implement this tip, here’s how we set it up at Entrepreneurs HQ: We offer a referral program for all our courses and workshops.
Monthly or annual subscription options are available, allowing you to earn a 30% to 50% commission that will be paid every quarter. As an EHQ member, you’ll promote free tickets to our virtual events, webinars and summits to your audience.
You’ll have numerous opportunities to make great commissions through the backend upsells. As a result, you’ll gain access to audio and video content from top entrepreneurs, hundreds of executive notes detailing critical marketing strategies, member-only access to a private community, and more.
What can you take away from our example?
Referrals are a powerful and effective way to target prospective clients. The best way to make referrals work is to genuinely care for your current clients. Guide them through their problems, support their growth, and help them achieve the results they came to you for with your coaching packages.
Your diligence is what leads to satisfied clients.
You can use social media ads, guest blogging, professional networking, or any other client acquisition strategy to build your flow of clients. But it’s all for nothing if you fail to provide a high-quality service.
4. Host virtual workshops and webinars
Virtual workshops and webinars are another great way to gain coaching clients.
This is our specialty here at Entrepreneurs HQ. I encourage coaches (regardless of their specialization) to use virtual workshops, summits, and webinars. These mediums provide incredible opportunities to showcase your knowledge and expertise.
Moreover, they give prospects an inside look at your processes, increasing their safety and lowering their skepticism about buying.
Sara Artemisia
Sara is a financial coach and plant lover and the host of The Plant Spirit Podcast. She attended one of our virtual events. As a result, we were able to help you reach her major goal of filling her retreats – a goal she’s had for 18 years!
She remarked, “The virtual event is the most fun I’ve had making money.”
Sara is a prime example of the power of a virtual workshop.
This kind of event allows your audience to learn from your expertise in the comfort of their own home. It’s a convenient way to provide value, establish authority, and build trust. As a result, it has the potential to generate more leads and prospects for your coaching practice.
5. Host a virtual summit
While a virtual workshop is typically conducted with a single teacher or coach (you) sharing their expertise with attendees, a virtual summit takes this concept a few steps further.
This online event is bigger and more high profile in its presentation.
It consists of experts and industry leaders coming together to share their knowledge with audiences. If done correctly, virtual summits are powerful and impactful and can help bring in new clients quickly.
Carl Cincinnato
Carl Cincinnato, Founder of Migraine World Summit, is one of our virtual summit clients.
Before working with us, he had a small community of fans. And while he wasn’t doing terribly by any means, he knew that he could be doing much better than he was. As a result, he took the leap and followed our virtual summit system.
Today, he has a flourishing community of over 100,000 email subscribers.
Do you think any of those 100,000 new subscribers converted into paying customers? You bet. This is the kind of growth you can experience with virtual summits. I use them to grow my businesses for many reasons.
However, the main selling point is the authority your brand commands.
If you bring on prominent speakers, leaders, and industry experts, people pay attention. They see you and your brand as a powerhouse in the industry. And that’s what draws prospects in, giving you the opportunity to convert them into high-paying clients.
6. Host a podcast
You’ll see something very interesting if you Google my name: Liam Austin.
And it’s not a YouTube channel or Wikipedia page. It’s a long catalog of podcast interviews I’ve done over the years. This inventory of podcasts was not done by accident – it was strategic every step of the way.
Podcasts can be an easy way to find potential coaching clients because you’re tapping into an already existing client base as a guest.
All you have to do is show up, provide some valuable insights, and give the listeners a way to contact you. And the best part is that you can easily find podcast shows or guests for your own show by simply doing a little research on Google.
Rob Dial
Rob Dial is a personal development speaker and coach who has done this well.
Not only has he been a guest on many popular podcasts in his industry, but he also runs his own. In fact, his Mindset Mentor is the top motivational podcast on iTunes. I love using podcasts to build audiences and gain clients.
A few advantages to starting a podcast include:
- Gives you a global reach
- Useful for repurposing content
- They’re budget-friendly and easy to do
- Create a community while having fun
- Connect with prospects in a meaningful way
- Generate leads and clients
7. Attend networking events
This tip may feel dated, but there is still a lot to be said about in-person networking.
Sure, you can get clients on Instagram or LinkedIn. But none of that can replace a face-to-face connection with a real human being. Your brand becomes more than just pixels on a screen when potential clients shake your hand, hear your voice, and connect with you as a person.
This approach humanizes you – and creates trust as a result – in a personal way that is hard to replicate on social media.
This is not to say you should forgo your content marketing efforts. Not at all. You simply want to supplement them by attending in-person networking events. This approach gives you a better chance of attracting more clients faster than you could if you did either one separately.
Charlene Woodman
Charlene Woodman is a photographer and creativity coach based in Canada.
She built her practice by photographing various functions, conferences, and networking events in her city. Through these events, she connected to a coaching certification company and became certified as a creativity coach.
Charlene is a great example of how attending industry-related events can build your business and clientele. After immersing herself in her community, Charlene developed a professional network that created opportunities to facilitate business and creativity workshops.
Her strategy is a testament to the traditional lead-generation methods that are often overlooked because of the virtual world.
8. Develop your brand
Ever heard of the phrase, “People don’t buy the product. They buy the brand?”
I don’t believe it’s 100% accurate – you have to have an exceptional product or service, after all – but it has a lot of validity. Good branding establishes trust, separates you from the competition, and creates a connection with audiences.
These factors are critical if you’re trying to win someone’s business. For this reason, it’s important to consider your brand and what you want it to communicate.
Becca Tracy
Becca Tracy is a life coach who helps consultants, nutritionists, and other coaches build their businesses.
She has done a masterful job with branding. Her brand name is “The Uncaged Life,” a tribute to the results she helps generate in the lives of her clients. The moment you land on her site, the bright colors, elegant fonts, and crisp images give you the feeling of freedom that her brand represents.
Even her web copy speaks to this desire. It offers hope for becoming “uncaged,” escaping the corporate world into a life of freedom and flexibility with your time and schedule.
Becca’s branding is clear.
There’s no doubt regarding who she is, the market she serves, and what she stands for. This is the essence of branding. So, what can you take away from Becca’s example? Refine your brand to stand out in the marketplace.
There are a million coaches who offer the same services as you.
But none of them can ever replicate who you are, the story that got you here, and the mission you’re trying to accomplish. Branding helps you communicate these attributes to your audience.
9. Optimize your website
Once the initial site work is done, the system runs on auto-pilot, generating leads while you focus on other important business tasks. However, this means you’ll have to learn how to optimize your site and content. That’s where SEO (search engine optimization) for coaches comes into play.
You can gain free, organic traffic from search engines by creating an optimization strategy to boost your site’s rankings.
Trey Shadwick
Trey Shadwick is a gym owner and fitness coach based in Texas who understands the importance of SEO.
He’s unlocked the power of SEO by implementing numerous optimization strategies. As a result, his site receives targeted traffic from prospects in his area. And while referrals and word of mouth work in his favor, his website optimization strategy supplements his other marketing efforts.
Just one look at Trey’s website quickly reveals some of the vital SEO tactics that include:
- Content marketing: He posts high-quality, SEO-friendly content that engages and educates prospects, increasing trust and credibility
- Keyword research: Whether in his blog posts or web copy, Trey focuses on using targeted keywords that match his prospect’s search intent
- Site speed: Site speed is a major SEO ranking factor that contributes to the user experience. Trey’s site is fast, loading in under two seconds. Longer wait times increase bounce rates and can lead to poor SEO performance
- Mobile friendly: Most people view your site on mobile rather than desktop. Trey understands this and accommodates it. His site looks just as professional on a mobile application as on an iPad or desktop
What can you take from Trey’s example to get more coaching clients? Prioritize optimizing your website. It’s an investment that can help you stand out and quickly gain targeted, high-paying clients.
10. Lead with value
As a life coach, you want to help your clients live happier, more fulfilling lives.
So, lead with that in every client interaction, discovery call, social media post, piece of video content, or other marketing touchpoints. Clients want to know how you can help them reach their goals. By communicating how you can serve, you are building a bridge (in your prospects’ minds) that they feel safe crossing, knowing it will connect them to their goals.
Lisa Jones
Lisa is a life coach who always puts client’s needs first.
This is expressed in every aspect of her brand and online presence. Her website explains her coaching process and how it can help you get unstuck, gain more clarity, and experience transformation in your life.
Lisa’s entire website is customer-focused.
She provides complimentary coaching sessions to new clients, helps people become clear in all aspects of life – from career to relationships, and supports others through their fears, limiting beliefs, and uncomfortable emotions.
What can you learn from Lisa’s example?
The necessity of leading with value by over-delivering for all clients. It’s tempting to categorize clients based on how much they invest in your services. You have to resist this. Every client matters. So, do your best to lead with value to ensure they all feel supported.
11. Take the stage
Giving speeches at industry events can create a flood of new coaching opportunities.
People giving talks are seen as experts – leaders in their field. They typically have experience and, as a result, credibility. Perhaps more importantly, speakers share their knowledge and expertise with eager audiences.
This makes an engaging speaker an authority and, as a result, a trustworthy source. For this reason, taking the stage of events and conferences can help build your clientele list.
Dr. Paul Jenkins
Dr. Paul Jenkins is a motivational speaker and life coach.
And he is a perfect example of how being a powerful presenter can supplement coaching. In fact, public speaking has done more than just help Paul gain coaching clients. It has helped him sell his many programs, thousands of books, and other products.
I like Paul’s strategy because it brings clients to you instead of the other way around. Think about it. Prospects who want to work with you after seeing you present are already “sold.” The only thing you need to do is gently guide them to one of your coaching programs.
Public speaking (provided you give talks where your market is located) can streamline your customer acquisition process.
12. Share your story
We are captivated by engaging stories – it’s hardwired into us.
For this reason, storytelling is one of the most successful marketing strategies. It can strengthen your brand, increase your credibility, and gain more coaching clients simply by sharing your story. There’s a reason why the biggest brands and businesses share their origin story in their “About” pages.
Customers today want to know where you came from and what brought you to where you are today.
They want to know who you are and what you value. Why? Because people want to connect with those they do business with. Cold, emotionless corporate marketing of the 1980s and 1990s is no longer acceptable by today’s standards.
And the best way to break out of that mold is to share your story.
Raia Carey
Raia is a motivational speaker and life coach from Canada.
She shares her story about her challenges with weight loss and not fitting in as a youngster. She’s raw, open, and vulnerable. Because she is so transparent about her personal challenges, people connect, and that’s what fuels her coaching business.
What can you learn from Raia? Your story is your most powerful asset.
It sets you apart, makes you memorable, and connects you with your market. So, whether you’re writing your About page copy, sharing an Instagram post, or delivering a presentation at an event, add those experiences that shaped your brand to draw in more prospects.
Key Takeaway
Getting clients as a life coach can be challenging.
However, once you find the right strategy, it takes the guesswork out of the process. As a result, you’ll have a much more stable clientele. The key takeaway is always to keep service as the primary objective. Clients will invest in your coaching when they feel genuinely cared for and supported.
If you still feel like you need additional assistance, be sure to watch our free training on how to get coaching clients.
