A life coaching business may seem non-essential, especially at a time like this, but do not underestimate just how much people value mentorship, learning, and being the best version of themselves. People often need help to find their way in life, and that’s where life coaches can come in. If you feel you have an edge on an aspect of life or feel like you have a particular brand of wisdom you think you can share with others, here are some tips for starting your own life coaching business.
Find a niche
A niche is anything that will help set you apart from other life coaches and will help you specify the kind of help you will provide your clients. In addition, your niche will help you identify the people you will partner with, the types of coaching packages and tiers you can create, and how you will market your business. Here are some tips for finding your niche:
- List down all the skills that you have. It can range from hard skills like encoding, engineering, carpentry to soft skills like interpersonal relationships, mental health literacy, and dating.
- List down significant experiences you’ve had that changed your life. Some examples include going through a divorce, adopting a child, losing a family member, being sober after dealing with huge addiction issues, been in a leadership or management position, and others.
- Write down the lessons you learned from these experiences, good and bad. For example, if you lost someone you loved, how did you cope with the grief? What tools helped you cope with the loss?
- Find the intersection between your skillset, life experiences, and wisdom you learned through the years. That’s how you will find your target demographic and the people who can be at the center of your life coaching business. Then, write a brief description of the niche that you find through these lists.
Some examples of a niche you can come up with through this process include helping people go through a breakup, art or music therapy, business management, conflict resolution for upper management executives, and others.
Build a community
At its core, life coaching is all about building a healthy relationship with your clients. It’s not just about imparting skills and wisdom; it’s all about establishing trust and believing that they can bank on what you teach them. Community is all about genuine relationships, which is why your business will benefit greatly from having its own branded platform for the community. You can have a top-notch space where you, your future team, and your clients can come together to talk about the lessons you learned and how they can apply them to real-life scenarios. It would also be the best place for testimonials, reviews, and other positive experiences your clients experienced through your life coaching program.
Ground your teachings in principles bigger than your own
The last thing you want is for your business to turn into a cult-like organization, like what happened with the NXIVM case. The founder got lost in his own hype and started coming up with bizarre lessons to justify the abuse he inflicted on scores of women that joined his life coaching business. If you want to avoid this kind of route, make sure to ground your teachings in principles that are bigger than anything you could come up with on your own. Whether it’s through religion or more tried-and-tested types of philosophies, make sure there is a canon of principles you can go back to over and over again to ensure that your ethics are always intact.
Additional pointers
- Make a name for yourself online. You can’t build a community unless you first make a name for yourself as a trusted person for this particular niche or aspect of life.
- Establish your idea of a perfect client. If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time. Be specific about the type of client you’re going for.
- Create a detailed expansion plan. Just like any business, you need to establish a strategy for how you will hit your goals.
- Protect yourself legally by setting up a legal entity and writing a liability waiver.
That’s it! Follow these steps, and you’re ready to find your first paying client. If you succeed at planning, you have already won half the battle—you need to enforce your strategy. Don’t rush through the process, never stop taking action, and don’t give up on your dream coaching business. The next few months or years might change your life.
