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When is the right time to create a website for your coaching business?
Creating a website feels like a natural next step to starting your coaching business, so you might be thinking RIGHT NOW! I need to create it right now! But in this video/blog, I'm sharing why you might not quite be ready yet and how to tell when you are ready to create the website for your coaching business. This video just might save you a couple thousand dollars.
Hellllooooo! If you're new to me, I'm Nikki Berkel. I’m a marketing and online business strategist for life coaches. I've created two different websites for my businesses. For the first one, I spent thousands of dollars on it and got zero clients in return. But with my second website, I started making money before it even launched.
So in this video/blog, I'm sharing three questions you can ask yourself to see if you are really ready to work on your coaching website.
Sometimes it seems complicated, but a website can be fairly simple to set up. Even if you're not a techie, a lot of the website providers out there now have great and very quick plug and play kind of templates. But the thing is, there's so much more to creating a strong website that gets you clients than just a quick plug and play template.
this more important than creating a few pretty pages
It is not just about buying a URL and creating a few pretty pages. And there are three questions that you want to be able to answer before you go spending your time and money on your website. And the thing is, if you can't answer these questions quickly and clearly yet as you're going through this video, then your website visitors are going to have the same experience.
They're going to get confused by what's on your website and confused people don't buy. Now, be sure to watch this video to the end, because I'm going to be sharing a quick, no brainer tip that you can set up in less than an hour that can help you get clients before your website set up.
The First Question to Answer BEFORE Creating Your Website
The first question that you want to be able to answer before you start working on your website is this: Can you say in a very short sentence, a single problem that you help people solve with your coaching?
Now, if you're still in coach training, or if you if you just recently finished your coach training, you might still be in the phase where you're really just still figuring this part out. And there might be dozens of things that you are thinking that you want to coach people on.
And that's where the challenge is. Because if you have a website that has 13 different problems that you can help people solve, that gets really confusing for a website visitor.
So after you think about it for a few minutes, if you can't quite come up with a simple sentence of the single problem that you can help people solve quite yet, that's okay. Keep practicing. Clarity will come through doing. And I suggest in this case, holding off on your website for now.
And if you are in that space of still figuring out what you want to coach people on, I have a free guide for you. You can click here to download 7 Steps to Guarantee a Profitable Message and Market. It's the steps I take my clients through to help make sure they're offering services that will sell.
The Second Question to Answer BEFORE Creating Your Website
The second question you want to be able to answer before creating your website is this: For the problem you help people solve through your coaching services, do you know the specific words your ideal client uses to describe this problem?
Now be careful here because what I'm not talking about is an assumption of what you think they would say about that problem. Instead, I'm talking about actually talking with people, interviewing people, doing online research, going attending events and listening to what conversations are happening there and actually documenting and noting the actual things people are saying about that problem.
Without using these specific words, it will be much harder to draw in a website visitor to turn them into a client.
Now, if you are here with me watching this video or reading this blog, then I know you are a coach who either wants to create a website, or you started creating your website and you just need a little bit of guidance. And I also know that you probably have a ton more questions about it. So feel free to ask me anything! Just comment below at the bottom of this page to ask your question and I will reply directly to you!
The Third Question to Answer BEFORE Creating Your Website
The third question that's important to be able to answer before creating your website is this: Have you validated the problem you help people solve? Meaning have you offered that specific coaching service to people and have they paid you money for it?
Now your brain will probably go nuts with this one, popping up with thoughts like, but I need a website in order to sell my coaching services. But the truth is for this stage in business, it's better to focus on the marketing activities, building relationships and making offers to make sure your coaching services will sell.
Validating your coaching services will help steer your business in a profitable direction without getting hung up on building a website or trying to figure out what to write on it.
Try this BEFORE Setting Up Your Website
Now, are you ready for that easy, no brainer trick I promised you earlier? You can set this up in an hour or less to help you get clients before your website is set up. Most of us want something tangible to be able to send people to show what we can do for them and to highlight the value of our coaching services.
So, you can create a simple one to two page document or a PDF, a marketing flyer in Microsoft word or if you want to do a little bit fancier, you can go with Canva for this. You don't have to be a designer and it really doesn't have to be extravagant.
You can keep it very simple and Canva has a lot of really great templates to start with. When you create a marketing flyer like this, you want to have at least these four things included:
You want to mention something that gives you authority and credibility that makes it known to people why they should trust you to help them. That can be just the fact that you're a certified life coach or a line or two about experience that you've had helping people so far.
You can also include a list of topics that you want to coach people on. This list might be really broad at first, but this practice will help you narrow in on a target market and a niche that's right for you.
You can also include a testimonial from one of your clients or practice clients that highlights your skills.
And finally, don't forget a way for that person to contact you. So this can be an email address, a phone number. And if you're not in a stage where you have a professional email set up yet, that's okay, just put your Gmail or whatever you have currently.
You are in a practice phase and you're getting ready to go out and do big things. And you're going to get there step by step, but don't let perfectionism hang you up. And, don't think things like, oh, I've got to have this set up before I do this.
No, just take the one next step, the one imperfect, messy next step. And that will get you there. When you take this kind of approach using a like one to two page marketing flyer, you can edit it over and over and over again in only a matter of minutes.
It really lets you be imperfect. It definitely helps keep you from getting hung up with tech issues on your website. And it gives you the freedom to change your mind about who you want to coach because you'll practice and evolve, practice and evolve, and then your message will become clear because of it.
So instead of sending somebody to a website, you either attach this document to the email that you send them, or you can hand them the flyer in person, and this will help you avoid spending thousands of dollars and quite possibly hundreds of hours of your time creating a website that you're not quite ready for yet.
Canva has a free version and a paid version, but most people can get away with just using the free version. I use Canva every day, I have the paid version. It's like $13 a month at this point and I find that it's well worth it.
Which camp are you in?
Now here's a couple things you might be thinking. Either, wow, that sounds so much simpler than creating a website right now, way better. I'm going to do that. Or you might be thinking, no that's way too simple. How could this possibly work?
If you're in that camp, I want you to know this: websites are not an if you build it, they will come situation. To get clients with a website, your website copy needs to speak to a specific person and problem. So once the person's on that website, the message resonates and they want to take the next step.
But there's something else that you need in order to get clients from a website and that's traffic. Now, there are a lot of ways to generate traffic, but in the beginning, if you don't have a clear message or know exactly who you're speaking to and what words they will be using, it is a lot harder to do.
Now, I don't want you to just create a life coaching business. I want you to create a profitable life coaching business, and if that's what you want too, then you can click here to watch this video next: Three Ways to Guarantee a Profitable Niche.
Do you need more guidance on how to creating a message that sells for your life coaching business? Click below to download my free guide 7 STEPS TO GUARANTEE A PROFITABLE MESSAGE & MARKET.
FREE GUIDE!
Feel confident when you introduce yourself to people as a coach.
Know exactly what to put on your website so clients want to work with you.
Uncover a profitable target market you love to work with.
Figure out what to charge your first or next client.
Learn how to work through the fear of putting yourself out there and marketing.