How to become a successful Life Coach 

Want to be a successful Coach? Let me rephrase that. Do you want to be a coach in demand, and learn how to become a successful Life Coach? Or if you are intrigued by some of the below questions:

• How to develop a marketing strategy as a coach?
• How to find more coaching clients?
• How to do branding as a coach?
• How to become a successful coach?
• How to become a personal development coach, and be in demand?
• How to grow as a Life Coach?

If your answer to any of the above questions is a resounding YES – congratulations my friend. You are halfway there because you have the vision to power you and this article will give you practical know-how’s that you can implement. Let’s kick start without any further ado.

How to become a successful Life Coach – Find Coaching clients who are already successful! ~ Read how to find more Life Coaching clients 

Every successful company has 3 elements that they excel at:

• A viable product/service,
• a successful Sales & Marketing strategy
• A failproof plan for Operations

The rest of the article will take about the basic steps (How to become a successful Life Coach) you may implement to cover the points given above.

1.      Choose your message – You as a Product

Know your stuff

Are you a certified coach? Have you learned models that you apply or can apply in your sessions? If not, please consider certification in any of the coaching frameworks. For example, NLP is a great coaching framework – intuitive, practical and you can be certified relatively quickly. The NLP way of coaching is designed in such a manner that a person practicing NLP experiences change as a person first, and can extend the benefits to others, as an NLP Coach.  Stick to one Coaching framework, and take time to Master it. Being a jack of all coaching frameworks, and master of none, won’t help in the long run.  Stick to one, and become an expert in that one.  NLP is followed by many successful coaches, in some form or the other.  Tony Robbins uses NLP framework in his coaching, and in the seminars that he conducts.  He has learned from Richard Bandler and John Grinder and many other top NLP Trainers have played a big role in his success in the self-help industry.  Here is the course curriculum for the NLP based Coach Program.

How to become a Successful Life Coach ~ Talk what you walk: Choose specialization based on experience and interest

Leadership Coaching, Executive Coaching, Life Coaching, Peak Performance Coaching, Wellness coach – the list is long and increasing every day. Coaching as a field is expanding and in due course, the demand is going to increase further.

While selecting your domain, do not go by fads. Best coaches in any field are always in demand; but of course, patience is the key. So, look within to choose the right field. What are you passionate about? What aspect of coaching brings out the best in you? If you happen to be good at everything – great! If not – don’t worry. There are people out there who are looking out for unique skillset and experience that you bring to the table. Problem is not in the demand. People are becoming more aware of how the right programming can help them easily improve their lives. Problem is that the ones who want a coach don’t know what to search for and most coaches don’t know how to reach to their potential clients.

If you are looking for simple steps for, How to become a Successful Life Coach, the steps are dynamic in nature, as marketing and ways to market are changing rapidly, and you have to keep up with the industry, and Sales and Marketing.

Choose the target audience and field. For example, as a leadership coach, you will not be giving solutions but asking questions that will make your client think clearly and choose. As a wellness coach, you might be involved in multiple aspects of your client’s life. Or a Life Coach? Or a general coach? It’s all up to you.

2.      Choose your messenger – Own your marketing strategy

In this age of the internet, your potential clients are all over the world. Create a plan to reach your potential clients. Some ideas to create leads online and offline are given below; however, feel free to experiment with other ways to create your leads.

Create awareness

You can volunteer, conduct awareness talks in your area, use Social media, start a blog, let everyone in your close circles know. At this stage, you are just letting everyone knows that you are a coach and looking for clients.

This phase will give you a deeper understanding of what people are looking for and how you can best provide services. Let’s consider 2 examples: one offline and one online.

1. You did an information seminar/ talk on the importance of coaching: Do not leave after your talk; some of the audience might want to talk to you. You may want to note the topics that people come and talk to you about. What are their major concerns? How can you add value? What new questions did you get? What is their age group?
2. Your blog and post it in your social media – what are the comments made? Which topic grabs the maximum comments/traffic? Please note that social media can sometimes generate negative attention as well; in which case, do not get entangled/diverted by the attention grabbers. You are looking for clients who will have a positive working relationship with you; the money makers, not the ones who will waste your time.

Evaluate

At this stage, you need to filter out people who you want to work with and do not want to work with. Lookout for people who are involved in your message; collect details of only the interested people. How do you get them? These are the people who sign up for the ‘newsletter’; watch your video till the end; visit your blog regularly; ask for your contact details and fix an appointment to talk to you.

If you are planning on using social media or online channels to get information about potential clients, you must either be hands-on with digital tools like Google Analytics – or you can outsource it to freelancers. Freelancers can help with one-time setup or assist you regularly with your web analytics. There are many freelancer job portals that you can check out.

3.      Walk your talk – put a failproof work plan in place

Now that you have your initial clients, please ensure you have a plan to manage your time. You will have to ensure you have time for your clients, for new learnings/improving your knowledge, and continuing your lead generation activities – whew! As they say – a disciplined coach is an effective coach.

Commit

Once you find your clients, commit to them. Realize that word of mouth is one of the best lead generation method in this field. If your existing clients trust you, is comfortable with you and gets tangible benefits out of their sessions with you; they will refer you.

The more value you bring to their lives, the more value they will bring to yours.

Learn and Grow

Coaching is a skill that you hone every time you coach. The more effectively you coach, the faster you become better at it. This means keeping aside some time after each session to note down any observations that come to your mind as you review your session. Did the session end at a positive note? Did the client have a significant takeaway? Is there any other approach/technique you might want to try in the next session?

In short, you must wear the critic’s spectacles and review your work. If any improvements are identified, do the necessary research and close the loop. After this, detach yourself from the session completely. This detachment is of utmost importance; in fact, the quality of your coaching depends on how detached you are. Any entanglement – happiness or unhappiness at how the previous session went – will result in reduced quality in your next session.

To conclude, there is only one mantra a successful coach needs – obsessive pursuit of excellence. You will sometimes have to be unpopular and challenge the limiting beliefs your client holds; all the while ensuring that your client feels safe with you. Many people question Richard Bandler’s style of personal change work, but whatever the external appearance of his style, he knows how to bring in the change.  Be congruent in whatever you intend to do as a Coach, and you will be successful!!

And the most important element is to attend a very robust Life Coaching Course which is your key when you are looking for answers for how to become a successful Life Coach.