How to Find Life Coaching Clients and Build a Thriving Practice

Starting a life coaching business?

Starting a life coaching business can be an incredibly rewarding and fulfilling journey. (I should know, I started as a life coach right after coach training!)

As a life coach, you get the opportunity to make a positive impact on the lives of others, helping them achieve their goals and reach their greatest potential. 

Yet, building a successful life coaching business requires more than just passion and expertise. It requires a strong business and marketing foundation that attracts and converts coaching clients consistently. 

In this article, I’ll share what foundational aspects you need in your business to get life coaching clients consistently and build a thriving practice.

The importance of getting clients for a life coaching practice

Before diving into the strategies, let’s first discuss why getting clients is crucial for a life coaching practice. Without clients, you don’t have a business. And without paying clients, you have a hobby (at least, according to the IRS!) 

Clients are the lifeblood of your practice, providing the financial revenue that makes your business run and allowing you to make the impact you want to make. By attracting and retaining clients, you can establish a reputation as a trusted and sought-after life coach, which in turn will lead to more clients and a thriving practice.

But where do you start with finding clients? Like anything, start by asking yourself what you want in your business.

Understanding what kind of life coach you are

The term “life coach” is very general and doesn’t really describe what you do or tell people exactly how you help. In today’s market, you need to be much more specific about the type of life coach you are.

Start by considering what you want in your business and what types of challenges and goals you want to help people with. 

Ask yourself the following questions:

1. What made you want to become a life coach in the first place?
2. What do you love about life coaching? 
3. What specific areas of life do you love helping people with?

So many life coaches take an outside-in approach, trying to figure out what type of coaching is most marketable, when your best bet is actually starting with what you want, and then finding the market for it. 

Identifying your target audience

The next step in attracting life coaching clients is to understand exactly who you want to serve, i.e., your target audience or your coaching niche. Contrary to popular belief, a niche is much more than the topic you coach on, like “career” or “relationship.” Your niche is a group of people you consider your ideal clients. 

Your ideal client is the person you most love to serve and who is best served by you. Remember to think about more than just demographics, like age, income level, or profession. You also want to consider psychographics, like the values, beliefs, and life stages of your clients.

Here are some questions to ask:

• What do the people you want to help have in common?
• What are their needs, desires, and pain points? 
• Who are your absolute favorite people to coach and why?

As part of this process, you’ll want to conduct market research to better understand and validate your knowledge about your ideal clients. The better you know your audience, the better you can tailor your coaching services to meet their specific needs.

Pricing and packaging your coaching services

Once you have a clear understanding of what kind of life coach you want to be and who you want to serve, it’s time to package and price your coaching services. Before you even think about pricing, start by creating a compelling coaching package that is tailored to the needs of your audience. 

Start by creating one package, and eventually you might create different coaching packages for different needs and budgets. This allows you to attract a wider range of life coaching clients.

Once you’ve created your package, focus on pricing. Pricing is a delicate balance between the value you provide and the accessibility of your target market. When pricing your coaching services, consider your level of experience, the value to the client, and the current market rates for life coaching services. 

Creating a compelling personal brand as a life coach

In today’s competitive marketplace, having a strong personal brand is essential for standing out and attracting clients. Your personal brand is how you differentiate yourself from other life coaches and communicate the unique value you provide as a life coach. 

Developing your personal brand as a coach includes sharing your values, personality, and expertise. Brand assets like your fonts, colors, and logo work to communicate your brand externally.

Invest time and effort into developing your personal brand by creating a professional website, defining your core message, and showcasing your expertise through content marketing and social media.

Developing a marketing strategy for your life coaching practice

To attract clients, you need a solid marketing strategy. Organic marketing is free while advertising includes paid marketing on sites like Google, Facebook, or Instagram.

Here are some tips to get started with marketing:

1. Start by defining your goals and objectives. What do you want to achieve with your marketing efforts? 
2. Next, identify the marketing channels that are most effective in reaching your target audience. This can include social media platforms, content marketing, email marketing, networking events, speaking engagements, and podcasts. 
3. Then, create a marketing plan that details the actions you’ll take for each marketing channel and when you’ll take that action. As part of your marketing plan, you might create a content plan that outlines what topics you’ll share about to resonate with your target audience.

Creating a sales funnel that turns prospects into clients

Sales goes hand in hand with marketing to help you turn your audience into qualified leads and eventually clients.

A sales funnel is a fancy word for the process that takes a person from finding you to buying from you. Not everyone will become a client, of course, but for those who are a good fit, you want to provide a step by step process that leads them to the invitation to work with you as their life coach. 

A sales funnel for a life coach often includes steps like offering a compelling lead magnet, nurturing leads with regular content and an email newsletter, and then inviting them to book a discovery call with you to learn more about your life coaching services.

Providing exceptional client experiences

To build a thriving practice as a life coach, it’s not enough to just attract clients. You also need to provide exceptional coaching experiences to your clients so that they want to continue working with you and/or refer other clients to you. 

Focus on building strong client relationships, actively listening to their needs, and tailoring your coaching sessions to their needs. The best marketing is happy clients and providing them with a stellar experience will repay you in referrals.

Encourage your satisfied clients to provide testimonials that highlight the results they achieved through your coaching services. Don’t forget to make it a regular practice to ask your current and past clients for referrals.

Common challenges in getting life coaching clients

Like any business, growing a life coaching business and finding clients is not without challenges, especially at the beginning of your business journey. It’s important to be aware of these common challenges, so you can address them as they arise. 

Common challenges in finding life coaching clients can include:

• Struggling to stand out in a competitive market
• Challenges with getting visible as a coach 
• Difficulty communicating the value of the work you do with your clients

One way to meet these challenges head on is to hire a business coach skilled at helping life coaches grow and market their businesses. 

Finding life coaching clients is a key step in building a thriving business

Learning the skills to attract — and retain — life coaching clients is a non-negotiable in business. (After all, if you don’t have clients or revenue, you don’t have a business!) 

By understanding your target audience, packaging your coaching services, creating a compelling personal brand, developing a solid marketing strategy, and delivering exceptional client experiences, you not only build a base of satisfied coaching clients, but you also make a meaningful impact on the lives of your clients.

While growing a successful coaching business takes time and effort, with the right strategies and mindset, you can achieve your goals as a life coach.