I believe everyone is on a journey, for some special reason we don’t always know about.

Mine continues to evolve in ways I wouldn’t have ever imagined.

When it comes to my work as a marketing strategist, I want you to take away two major points. Both are based on what I’ve learned since training to be a life coach in 2016.

The first major point is a lesson I learned about coaching and niches.

As you’re getting ready to start your coaching business, do you ever find yourself thinking ‘I sure hope this coaching business thing works out’. You spend a lot of time and money on coach training and then there will come a point when it’s time to actually get paying clients to grow your business. 

I can remember paying around $7,000 (and that’s inexpensive now compared to today’s prices!) for my coach training, even more to learn about branding, more yet to create my first website and even more still for some marketing courses. And somehow, those things didn’t land me any new clients.

So, my first coaching business failed.

But, my second business was fully booked within two months. Here’s what happened…

In 2016, I finished life coach training through Martha Beck and I was so excited to help people and also ready to enjoy work again because I hated my prior career.  Leaving coach training, I was full of enthusiasm and confidence, and it didn’t take me long to get my first few paying clients.

When I got my first paying client I got, I literally fell to my knees crying. I was so grateful and proud of myself. I had just proven that I could help people for a living and get paid for it. And then, I had a long dry spell. No new clients. And it was WAY tougher than I had imagined to get more.

It was getting so frustrating. I was just about out of the savings I’d used to launch my coaching business full time. 

Since my coaching business was failing, I had to put pause on that and find something I could do QUICK to make money with.

At this point I’d studied copywriting, email marketing and had learned the tech to set up opt ins and landing pages. So, I started reaching out to some coach colleagues who hated online marketing stuff. I made them simple offers. And within 2 months, I was fully booked.

I never did go back to marketing my life coaching business, but I was dying to know what I had done differently with the second business attempt that was so successful, but that didn't work with my life coaching for moms.

So, I did - and once I compared the two businesses, I realized pretty quickly what the problems were.

1) I didn’t have a profitable niche (the problem I helped people solve). People thought my work was interesting - but not enough to buy my services.

2) I had a defined target market, but not a HOT target market who was ready to buy.

3) I created content, but not the right kind to attract buying clients.

It made perfect sense now why my second business was so successful and my first failed. After that, part of my mission has been to help coaches fill in those gaps that I struggled with. And, something that’s important to me as well is affordability.

I remember feeling so frustrated because I just wanted access to solid marketing training, but it was so expensive. I ran out of money before my business was successful, and I know a lot of other coaches experience the same. It’s not for lack of trying, it’s for lack of proper marketing knowledge for the stage of business you’re in.

That’s why I’m so excited about The Profitable Niche Club for Coaches. For now, it’s meant to be a chill place you can get affordable marketing guidance specifically for coaches. It’s not expensive, but the training I provide can make a huge difference in getting your coaching business off the ground.

The second major point is a lesson I learned about coaches and their dang websites.

We don’t know what we don’t know. That’s an annoyingly true statement. Well, when you’re a new coach, it feels really important to launch a website.

For some, they just don’t feel credible without one. I get it. I felt that way in the beginning too. Now, my first website wasn’t super expensive. I think $1,000? But the time I put into agonizing over my first website was much higher. I could have spent that precious time actually marketing myself instead of just building a website that would shortly be obsolete, because…

The crazy thing is when you’re a new coach, your website will be outdated in like 5 minutes. When you first start coaching, most coaches don’t have niche yet. And anything you write on your website will continue to evolve as you work with more clients, get more confidence, and eventually choose a niche.

So, sure, you could hire a branding expert, pay for an expensive copywriter, and then shell out for a fancy website design. I know a lot of coaches that have shelled out over $5k for these things, just to regret it later. But if you don’t have that kind of budget or if as you read this you realize how unnecessary it is, I’d like to encourage you to keep it as simple as possible for your website right now.

That’s why I created my offer, Launch Your 1-Page Coaching Website in a Day. It’s a streamlined process that helps you make quick decisions for your site, not waste a bunch of money up front, but still get the help you need from someone who knows websites. It’s not a fancy, multi-page website. It’s simple and professional. But it’s also exactly what most coaches need at the stage you’re in right now.

So, those are the two learning lessons that have shaped the work I’m doing today. Helping coaches find a profitable niche and launching simple websites for your early stage coaching business.