Are you a health or wellness coach wondering how to get more coaching clients? Would you like to stop chasing after prospects and get them to come to YOU instead?
Sometimes, looking for new coaching clients can feel exhausting and even demoralizing – but it does not have to be.
Whether you are just starting out, or have been in business for a while, this article will show you how to attract more qualified prospects to your health coaching practice, build trust with them, and turn them into paying clients – fast.
How To Get Clients As A Health Coach: The Ultimate Guide
Part 1: Getting Your First Few Clients
You have put up a website, printed business cards, and are very excited to get your health coaching business off the ground… But how do you get that first client?
Thankfully, there are quite a few simple, proven ways to attract coaching clients to a brand new business.
However, keep in mind that gaining traction with most of these strategies can be a slow process.
You will eventually need to find more scalable ways to grow your business – which is why I’ve included a bonus strategy (Facebook challenges) for you to consider even if you are just starting out.
If done right, it could get you your first client very quickly (and keep working for you for years to come).
6 Strategies to Get You Your First Coaching Client
1. Start with an existing network.
Reach out to people you know in real life to see if they know someone who might be interested in your coaching services.
Alternatively, join a few Facebook groups in your particular health niche and build up a reputation as a helpful, knowledgeable person before sharing your offer with the group members.
2. Give talks.
Contact a local health food store shop, grocery store or wellness center, to see if they would be interested in you sharing your expertise with their customers.
3. Go to meetups.
Meetups and networking events are a great way to meet potential clients – or someone who might be able to introduce you to a potential client.
Find a meetup or networking event in your area, or host your own – the point is to get out there and start talking about how you can help people!
4. Partner with other service providers.
You can expand your network by partnering up with another coach who works in a related niche but is not your direct competitor.
You can also give your business card to other service providers in your area, such as personal trainers, hairdressers, and anyone else your dream client might see regularly.
5. Offer free coaching sessions.
Giving something away for free is always a great way to generate some buzz around your business.
You might also get a referral out of it, or at least a great testimonial to put on your website!
6. Launch a Facebook challenge.
Running a Facebook challenge is one of the quickest ways to attract qualified prospects to your business and make them WANT to work with you.
Running a successful challenge doesn’t require any more skill than other strategies on this list, but you do need to make sure it’s done right in order to get the results you want.
For example, one of my Challenge Program participants got her very FIRST client in just 5 days by running a better sleep challenge on Facebook.
Part 2: Building A Stable Flow of New Clients & Growing Your Business
Step 1: Have A Way To Collect Leads
If you want to build a steady flow of new clients who are coming to you, you need to have a place for them to find you.
This can be either a Facebook page or a website.
The most important part is making sure you have something valuable to offer potential clients – completely free of charge.
This free offer will help you build trust with potential clients and make them curious about working with you further.
Keep in mind that the offer has to be very niche-specific for it to work, which means you need to know your audience well.
Who is your ideal client? What are they currently struggling with? If they could take a magic pill to change one thing about themselves today, what would it be?
Once you know this, you can create a free offer that’s so valuable to your ideal client they will be absolutely ecstatic to take part in one of your paid programs afterward.
That’s exactly what one of my own clients, Allie, did when she started her health coaching business.
Her “Healthy Without Struggle” checklist is an excellent example of a free offer that turns prospects into paying clients and program participants.
Now, her business can run without her being there at all – which is a good thing because she’s just about to have a baby!
Step 2: Get in Front of Your Potential Clients
While getting started with offline strategies is the best way to get your first client, if you want to grow and scale your health coaching business, you are going to want to go digital.
Digital channels never stop – which means that, if you use them right, you could be getting clients while you sleep!
4 Places to Find More Coaching Clients Now
1. Advertising
Paid advertising can give your website traffic and lead numbers a very quick boost.
However, growing your business through advertising can be very expensive and requires a lot of in-depth, technical knowledge.
If you want to give it a shot, consider:
- Google Ads. If you pay for a Google Ad, your website will show up on search results when someone looks up one of your chosen keywords. It’s a simple and relatively straightforward way to get more leads – as long as you have a great landing page to send them to!
- LinkedIn Ads. Do you help exhausted CEOs make healthier choices in their busy lives? Since LinkedIn is a platform for business conversations, advertising on here could work for you if your health coaching niche is more business-oriented.
- Facebook ads. With Facebook ads, you can get very specific about your target audience, increasing your chances of converting a visitor into a lead. However, they can require a lot of expensive trial-and-error to get right the first time around.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization can help you increase the ranking of your website in Google search results and get more organic search traffic.
However, SEO is a long-term investment – it can take 3-6 months to see results and you will almost definitely need to hire a professional to get it right.
3. Podcasts & Online Radio Shows
Making a guest appearance on a popular podcast could, in theory, give you lots of exposure.
However, getting on a podcast that has a reach wide enough to be worth the trouble isn’t easy.
Many of the top podcasts in the health niche, like The Paleo Solution or Underground Wellness Radio, have waiting lists that are months long.
4. Organic Social Media Promotion
Facebook isn’t just good for paid advertising.
Since it is a social platform, it is a great place to connect with your target audience on a more personal level.
All you have to do is create or join a Facebook group that is relevant to your particular health coaching niche, such as weight loss, fitness, or holistic health.
To stand out on Instagram, you will have to put in time and effort to make your content very visually appealing.
Consider posting photos of your beautiful, healthy meals, or sharing well-designed images of thought-provoking quotes.
LinkedIn can be a tricky social platform for health coaches to use, as it is mainly used for professional conversations.
However, it could work well for a health coach who’s in the business of helping overworked executives take back their time and their health, so don’t discount it as a possibility!
Twitter is good for checking in with your audience once in a while, but the character limit makes it difficult to have meaningful conversations that actually build trusting relationships with potential clients.
Step 3: Build Trust
However, you choose to promote your coaching business, getting in front of potential clients’ eyeballs is not going to be enough to convert them into paying customers.
You are going to need to build trust with them by sharing your expertise and adding value to their lives first.
That’s why I recommend using Facebook challenges as your main marketing method.
Challenges are great for getting to know your audience – and letting them get to know you!
They allow you to show your audience you really know your stuff and have real, two-way conversations with them about their problems.
Need Help Getting Started?
Running a Facebook challenge is the quickest, most foolproof way to attract more dream clients to your business, but you have to know how to do it right.
Want to chat about how to grow your health coaching business?
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