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What no-one is telling you about growing your online coaching business 

The 5 steps you need to get ready to scale your coaching business.

If you’ve been serving clients for several years now, you know that you have a valuable service to offer more people. But it’s also likely you just don’t know how to prepare your business to move to scalable success. You want to step up an impact gear without draining your energy banks. In this article I will share 5 steps you need to take to achieve your goal.

One of my clients’ biggest concerns about scaling their businesses is how to serve more people without burn out. It’s hard enough to fit everything into the week as it stands. 

Their second fear is around marketing. How to show up and stand out from the noise all around and attract the right clients into their fold.

Scalable Success definition 

Serving high value offers to multiple people at the same time so you are saving time while earning more per hour.

Having worked online since 2006, I’ve seen my fair share of marketing tactics and have learnt a thing or two along the way. Sadly the biggest issue I have with much of the advertising and marketing aimed at coaches and consultants is the promise for rapid growth. The message mostly heard is that you too can ride the unicorn into the sunset, if you just spend your yet-to-be-hard-earned-cash with me and my amazing tool or template.

Fact: Very few people do achieve overnight success.

Instead they have worked for years laying the foundations, working their trade and putting in the groundwork that means when they then take the action to scale, the stars are aligned and success will follow. 

So many factors come into play when building your business, and whether you see success or not. 

There is no fixed magic formula, but there are definitely more well trodden paths that have given coaches the flexibility they desire to make something their own, while not taking overly-risky leaps of faith into the unknown. 

To save you a lot of heartache and wasted time, allow me walk you through the 5 steps needed to get ready to scale your service business online:

5 Steps To Get Ready To Scale Your Coaching Business

Step 1. Know Your True Value and Show Up Confidently

Step 1 is to know your true value and show up confidently sharing your expertise, authority and experience as to why you are a good source to provide the desired experience, transformation or solution. 

Building trust is key and you can only do this by being consistent in how you show up. Your brand is famously said to be what people say about you when you are not in the room. Your values need to be lived through how you show up on social media, in person and elsewhere. Consistency is key. 

This is the biggest and first hurdle that many coaches and consultants never overcome as they whizz past this stage. Then when they try to sell their online courses or memberships the only response they get is tumbleweed. If that is you, know that it is never too late to revisit this step and finally give the attention to it that will then support taking you up a level.

Step 2. Align Your Offers with Clear Outcomes that Your Prospects Want

Once you believe in your value, and see where you fit into the marketplace, it’s time to take a serious look at the offers you have on the table. Do your offers align solidly with the people you wish to serve? And most importantly what they want? (Not what you feel they should have.)

The most important aspect when creating aligned offers is to show clearly what the end goal is. What can a client aim to accomplish in their time with you? Prospects  want to see that you can clearly help them achieve their goals. 

You are the expert, the master, who prospects are looking to get the answers from. If your transformation takes time, allow that time and cost it in. If it feels too much of an investment in one go, break it down into smaller milestones and separate packages.

Step 3. Market with Specificity & Polarity 

Social media marketing provides online business owners with the opportunity for both specificity and polarity of messaging. You want to not just attract the right people but to also repel the wrong people. You want people to scroll on by as much as to click through and engage. 

We don’t want to win a popularity contest with millions of followers, but rather have a handful of highly committed clients taking action and investing in the value you provide.

The more specific you can be when talking to your ideal client, the more successful your marketing will be. In my marketing, I call out the extroversion bias in society, and focus instead on how introverts are different, and as such need a different solution to the mainstream methods. 

My introverted friends will lean in closer, loving that they’ve found someone who speaks their language. This is how you want your prospects to see you, trust you and then buy your tailored solutions from you. 

Step 4. Step Into Your Prospects’ Shoes, Connect To Their Dreams

The real secret that no-one is telling you about growing your online coaching business is that the best way to step into your prospects’ shoes and connect to their dreams is to mirror the thoughts in their heads. 

Luckily as an introvert you are now stepping into your superpower of active listening at this stage, though the initial reach out to talk (yes talk!) to your people may feel awkward at first. The more you do it, the easier it gets. We all need to practise any skill we have. Marketing and business building is no different. 

The best way to show you see and hear your people, is to focus on education-led content that tackles the common objections of clients interested in your solution. Ask those you wish to serve what they are thinking and why. “Why is this so?” That simple small question will provide the golden key to connect to their dreams.

Online marketing gives us many opportunities to start personal conversations and provide amazing customer service from the device at our fingertips.

Step 5. Set up Smart Systems that build your business backbone

The last piece of the puzzle is setting up your systems to support your dream business. You can do this so they can expand and grow with you over time. Starting by implementing piece by piece is far easier than waiting until you are in a hot mess to sort out and back track with all your data.

When you are getting ready to scale your online coaching business, you will need to take a deep look at what you are doing right now in your business to make the wheels turn. Create an inventory of tasks. Only once you know what you are doing can you take it to the next level and work out whether each task is something that falls into one of three buckets in your business: 

  1. Can be fully automated
  2. Can be outsourced
  3. Needs to stay with you

There are many system specialists that can support you with automations in your business. They will look at the best tech stack to meet your bespoke requirements. But the basics, that centre on customer experience, you can get started with easily yourself. 

Where are you, honestly?

Have you taken the time to consider, test and tweak, refine and iterate each of these 5 stages? Are you ready and confident to scale? Or have you tried to scale but things just haven’t worked and you’re not sure why? 

These steps are an important element that many business coaches fast-track past to get to the shiny promises of endless passive income. But there is no such thing as passive income. As a business owner your marketing is key to sales, and that is never passive. You expect your client to be actively engaged and it would be rude if you were not reflecting their interest.

In 2022 marketing is more interactive and personalised than ever before. There is a huge trend towards direct messaging to connect with prospects as you show as a coach you not only care, but connect and understand the clients needs at the individual level. When you’re looking at selling high ticket offers, the personal touch is even more important.

As an introverted business owner you need to get comfortable with marketing and sales. By not just thinking, listening and learning, but by DOING. The results will start to show in your coaching business as you grow your audience and bring in your ideal clients who not only love working with you but rave about you to their connections too.

If you are unsure how to go through these five steps yourself, you can get guided support and personal feedback from me inside The Spark Space as we deep dive into the five phases.


Susanna
July 20, 2022

Susanna Reay is a multi award-winning coach, writer, and speaker who’s been bringing clarity, focus and structure into small businesses and entrepreneurial start-ups for over 20 years. Susanna brings a unique perspective informed by her training in design and business strategy, her life-long interest in psychology and strengths as an introverted online business builder. Her book, courses and mentoring have been the catalyst for growth for clients who’ve integrated Sparkle Frameworks® into their business. She helps the unseen be seen, heard and respected. Susanna is based in Europe, serving a global audience from her English home.


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