Who’s Buying Coaching These Days?


It’s a good question. If you’ve been selling a certain type of coaching such as relationship, career, wellness, leadership, life purpose (put any word before coaching)… you must be wondering this yourself because clients may have been hard to come by.

Many coaches haven’t noticed a blip in the number of people wanting their services. In fact, their income has increased over the last few years and it’s still rising. Their clients are staying longer. What are they doing differently?

Well, I’ll tell you, this may be shocking, but they are NOT selling coaching. And yet they are continuously doing some fine coaching with a wait list of clients.

Are People Buying Your Coaching? - Rhonda HessHere’s what we know about any economic downturn, and there have been several over the last two decades where coaches rode the wave back up ahead of the curve…

People still buy things they want, but they have changed their buying strategy.

They feel they must justify their expenses and they get very serious about what’s really important to them. They dedicate their resources to those things right now.

This is true of all of us. We’ll buy less doodads and think twice about lots of things, but we’ll do things like go back to school or take some kind of training or enroll in a mastermind. We more earnestly look for ways to close the gap between where we are now and where we truly want to be.

People are looking to upgrade their lives, not with luxuries, but with meaning. And this is true of your future clients too.

It’s actually rare that anyone ever seeks out coaching for two reasons:


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Why it Pays to Be Well Known (and what might be keeping you from it)


Do you ever wonder how all the big name coaches and thought leaders got to the top? I used to think it was about years of experience, but it’s not. And, it’s not even about expertise or how much your clients love you (although it can help).

When it first happens it feels like you’re stepping onto a fast luxury train. It’s very exciting and smooth. Some sort of critical mass is reached where suddenly you’re the bomb and everyone knows it:

  • The right opportunities roll in (instead of the kind that waste your time).
  • Someone gives you a book advance or you’re asked to keynote for 5 figures.
  • People come out of the woodwork to promote you to their big lists.
  • You hear all the time “You’re the best there is.”
  • Your list suddenly grows exponentially.
  • Your time is in such high demand you must double or triple your fees.
  • And you realize you have to hire money managers because it’s flowing in.

Your star has risen! And now you’ve got the high-class problem of having to turn down opportunities and clients. But then you expand your team (into a lovely little family) so it’s possible to scale up without having to work harder.

I know not everyone wants a business like that, but don’t you want some measure of “having arrived”? At the very least you want to become THE top of mind go to person for your niche so it makes your life easier, more enjoyable and prosperous.

But what do you really need to have going for you to become well known?


Continue reading Why it Pays to Be Well Known (and what might be keeping you from it)

Did You Skip This Crucial Step in Your Coaching Business?


I hope you didn’t. But don’t worry, it’s never too late to pick up that step because it will dramatically affect how much you earn and how hard you work.

We all happily stumble into exciting opportunities that become significant turning points in our coaching business. There’s a lot of grace in moving with the current… but it’s helpful to at least pick the river that will take you to where you ultimately want to go.

Making conscious choices, planning your work and working your plan, and setting intentions for the big milestones in your life are part of a prosperity practice. Deviating from the plan here and there is cool (but spazzing out all over the place is not so cool).

In my last post, my friend Erika Kalmar (who’s doing that awesome Giveaway for Coaches), talked about the importance of business planning. Unsexy as that may seem, what I know for sure is that she’s absolutely right. Business planning helps you take AIM and take your business seriously.

Who you serve is the critical first step in your coaching business - Rhonda Hess

But it’s not the first step…

The 1st Crucial Step is: Decide specifically who you serve and what transformation you provide (that they urgently want). Stand for something and someone. That’s how you stand out.

Without that clarity, your business plan will be sketchy at best, your website will be bland and your offers won’t compel people to invest.

Are you leading your coaching business to long-term sustainable success? Or are you just taking stabs and hoping for the best?


Continue reading Did You Skip This Crucial Step in Your Coaching Business?

Business Plan, A Neglected Factor – 14 Reasons Why You Absolutely Must Have One – by Erika Kalmar


This is a guest post by my friend and colleague, Erika Kalmar, the Coaching Biz Start-Up Strategist …

One of the often seen mistakes of coaches is that they start setting up their business on the wrong end. Sometimes it is due to overwhelm, at other times due to lack of planning, but conclusion is – many coaches do not start where they should be, the #1 step they would need to take and this is preparing a business plan.

So what, you may ask? Everyone is free to choose their first steps, right? Some might feel starting up with their website, others with their Facebook Fan Page and again others might jump straight into creating their products.

The thing is – if you also belong to this group of people, then you are not following a long-term plan but acting on a short term strategy basis, working on a to-do item on your list.

Do you see where I am getting at?

Business Plan, A Neglected FactorHow will you know that this strategy or to-do item will really fit the big picture, the vision of your business – and most importantly, that this is the best way to fulfill your business vision?

Because this is exactly what is happening if you tackle individual steps instead of the “big picture” first – you are working on short-term goals, hoping that it will ever contribute to your long-term one (that you might not even be aware of at the time).


Continue reading Business Plan, A Neglected Factor – 14 Reasons Why You Absolutely Must Have One – by Erika Kalmar

Build Your Coaching Client List Faster with This Simple Tool – by Kenn Schroder


This is a guest post by my friend and colleague, Kenn Schroder, the Coaching Website Specialist…

One key to growing a big list fast is to make sure your opt-in form is very prominent and very easy to use.

Many coaching websites tend to, with very low effectiveness, place the opt-in box low on the home page or buried within the site. This is not ideal for building a list.

Enter AWeber’s “light-box” style opt-in form.

In addition to being a sweet email list management service with great support, AWeber has a very nice form generator tool that enables you to create your opt-in forms.

One such form is the “light-box”.


Continue reading Build Your Coaching Client List Faster with This Simple Tool – by Kenn Schroder

Does Your Coaching Website Have the 3 Client-Winning Keys?


By the time I created my third coaching website, I realized that a website should be more than an online brochure. It should do a lot of my marketing and enrolling work for me. And then I had a paradigm shift – my website should feel like home to my target market rather than just be all about me and what I do.

Whoosh! As soon as I aligned my website so that it spoke to the people I was serving, my list built exponentially and so did my income.

I often hear from coaches that their website’s just sitting there, doing nothing for them and they don’t know why. Many say they don’t really know what’s on their site without looking.

Sound familiar? If that’s you, I understand because once upon a time I put my website in the hands of my web designer, let go and hoped for the best. I truly thought that I could set it and forget it. Wrong. A website is a living thing.

client winning websites - Rhonda HessIf you get clients primarily from the Internet, as I do – or if you’d like to, it’s critical that your website is the HUB of your business.

Now, I have a blog for my main website. With all the fresh content and social network plug-ins, it’s a happy command center for my business. Most everything I do, plus all the clients and joint venture offers I attract, come and go from that hub. It’s like a busy airport and I’m really proud of it. (My site won the Best Coaching Blogs contest in 2010 and received Runner-Up honors this year, as well.)

There are three “secret” ingredients every website must have going for it to be a client winning site, one that:


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Why it Pays to Be Vulnerable in Your Blog


When was the last time you wrote something truly vulnerable and shared it with the folks on your list?

Be Vulnerable in Your Blog, Rhonda HessI hope it was within the last week. You may think I’m crazy for saying this (or you may think it’s a no-brainer), but –

Your blog is the perfect place to show a bit of your humanity… to let your tribe in on some of your mistakes, as well as how you overcame them.

There are two BIG reasons why you want to be vulnerable with your tribe:

  1. Showing that you’re vulnerable builds trust and understanding. People will like you better and want to connect if they get a sense of who you are under all that “expertise” or skill.
  2. Being real is more fun and… well, more real!

When I started writing for coaches in 2001, I had this idea that I needed know more, seem perfect, and be the “wise one”. I wrote a lot of how-to articles full of good stuff, but I missed the opportunity to show more of myself and relate to my audience.

So when I hear coaches say they don’t know enough to serve their niche market, it reminds me of me back then. But that’s just a lie we tell ourselves.

Of course, some of your blog posts will educate the people in your niche market. Some will correct mistakes or take them step-by-step through how to do something. But your tips will land more deeply if you also share how you got there — which is almost always about fumbling into competency, right?

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    • COMMENTS

      COMMENTS

      • Barbara "Thank you for responding.  Yes, I'm still doing pro bono work. I have not taken this to the level where I'm getting paid.  You make a good point and although there are a vast number of women in this category, it does make me wonder if you're on the mark here. I was told to focus in on..." in response to How to Attract Clients in a More Coach-Like Way
      • Barbara "Wonderful article Rhonda.  I have been a "pro bono" coach for as long as I can remember.  I have gone through a program, hired and worked with a mentor coach, have a company and domain name,  business cards and a Pay Pal account.  Sounds great you might say!  Well, I haven't been able to take it..." in response to How to Attract Clients in a More Coach-Like Way
      • Angela "I truly truly credit you Rhonda with making me realize how incredibly important this is in business.  Now I run around telling everyone how much THEY need to do it!  Still working on my rebranding but it's coming together soon :) ..." in response to How to Attract Clients in a More Coach-Like Way