The biggest challenges you will face as a new coach
Ouuuuu you’re starting a coaching business. Exciting!
I have met so many new coaches over the years who are right at the beginning of their business journey, wide-eyed and ready to delve into this new career.
And I like to make it my job to arm new coaches with the knowledge of what it REALLY takes to make a coaching business work. Because there are unique challenges that most new coaches aren’t prepared for when they first start their businesses.
Too many business coaches make it seem like it’s soooo easy to just decide to start a business and start working with clients! But there are SO many obstacles, especially for coaches, and I like to keep it real about what it is going to take to make it work.
In my experience, almost no new coaches are immune to these challenges, so it’s a good idea to know they are coming so that you don’t end up thinking you’re doing it wrong or want to quit because things feel hard.
New Life Coach Challenge #1 – Getting Paying Clients
One of the biggest challenges that new life coaches face is getting paying clients, and getting them consistently enough that they can actually call it a “business”.
It’s not as easy as they make it seem in coaching school. We all sat there and did the math right? Or was that just me?
When our coaching school told us how much we can charge for a coaching session, I remember pulling out my phone and doing some quick math and thinking “sweet! I only need like 10 clients to be pulling in some decent income!”.
It sounded easy. I was excited and felt like I was on fire after my coach training, ready to go out and do it!
Little did I know how hard it would be to get and KEEP 10 clients, consistently, for years on end.
Here is the truth – it was fucking hard!!
I secured 3 clients pretty quickly from reaching out to people I knew….. Then one dropped off when she got too busy.
Then I got one more, but one of the first ones kept delaying sessions, pushing them back for various reasons, and all of a sudden the $300/month she paid me back in February was still dragging out into May, which wasn’t ideal.
You can see where this is going….
Getting and keeping clients is NOT easy right off the bat, so you need to do everything you can to make it as easy as possible.
One of the BEST strategies to help you get clients fast when you are a new coach, is to niche in.
I know, I know. You have heard this advice before and you don’t want to niche because you don’t want to be limited, or you don’t want to get bored. Blah blah blah.
I have heard ALL the reasons over the years for not wanting to niche and the truth is, I have never heard one good enough for me to say “you’re right, you should stay general and not niche”.
That is a topic for a whole other post.
But for now, the one thing I want you to walk away with after reading this post, is that the fastest way to get paying clients is to choose a niche…. EVEN if it’s not a niche you want to work with FOREVER.
You heard me right — pick something, dammit, and get coaching!
Here is the funny thing about choosing a niche — even if it’s not your most perfect 100% ideal niche, you are still not going to choose something you HATE. It just never happens. So I encourage you to pick something you reasonably like and think of it as a “for now” niche. Even just a “for the first 6 months” niche. Make it specific and make sure they have a very clear problem that they are looking for help with.
Once you start working with people in that niche and GETTING PAID for it, I promise that it is going to feel amazing, and you might even forget that you were so resistant to choosing a niche in the first place.
Niching = making money faster = more momentum in your business + more fun = less likely to quit before you get anywhere.
Once that money is coming in, you will have a little breathing room to reassess your niche and make a decision about whether you want to shift it. And I promise you it’s totally not a big deal if you change your niche later – it happens ALL the time, no one notices, no one cares, and you can get right back up to speed in the new niche way faster than you think.
Once you have a niche, the next thing you need to do in order to get clients fast is to get visibility for your business.
There are lots of mindset meltdowns that new coaches have when we start pushing them to get visible, and I can tell you that having a more concrete and clear niche has really helped a lot of our Uncage Your Business students with not being as nervous to talk about what they do and share more widely, because the specificity of the niche makes it WAY easier for them to talk about.
Some specific strategies that work best for life coaches to get visibility when you are new:
- Network like your life depended on it (but with the right people). I am not talking about going to a bunch of boring local networking events handing out business cards. I am talking about getting strategic with who you meet and letting them know clearly who you serve (see, that’s where that niche comes in handy yet again!). The more people that know what you do, the more chance of referrals. Getting to know people who serve a similar audience to you but who do something different are the BEST people for you to know, because the opportunity for collaborations and referrals are endless.
- Guest post on other people’s blogs (I swear, blogging is coming back!) or get interviewed on their podcasts or websites or in their private community. If you can write a great article, do a killer interview, or share content that can help someone else’s audience, then you can leverage their audience to grow your own. It’s a win-win situation for both parties and it’s my absolute favorite strategy for new businesses because it is FREE and gets you mega visibility. The thing that makes this work best is — you guessed it — having a clear niche and a clear problem you solve, and a clear point-of-view about how folks can start to create change around that problem. Having something interesting and relevant to say about a topic is an easy way to get YES’s when you pitch yourself to be featured somewhere. (This is a huge piece of what we teach in our Uncage Your Business program by the way. If you’re a new coach and you’re thinking “Eep, niche? Problem? Point of view? How do I figure all this out and make sure it’s marketable?”… I’ve got you. Come check out Uncage Your Business).
New Life Coach Challenge #2: Setting your prices
Another challenge that new coaches face is figuring out what to charge.
And not just figuring out what prices to list, but more so actually having the CONFIDENCE needed to sell their coaching at those prices.
Many coaches struggle with setting fees that feel “fair”, AND get them paid. These two things are often at odds for new coaches.
We bring ALL of our own money baggage into pricing, especially when we are new to business.
And a curse that many new coaches seem to have is feeling guilty about charging for coaching, because “all they want to do is help people”, and “most people can’t afford what they want to charge”. I have heard that last one from coaches who charge $75/session and coaches who charge several hundred.
It makes me think of a motto around pricing that I said once in a coaching call with our students that I still come back to — “A lot of people have a lot of money for a lot of things”
i.e. don’t make assumptions about what someone can or can not afford, or what someone chooses to prioritize to spend their money on.
The mindset work required when you start asking for money for your coaching throws MANY new coaches off – so get ready for it! Know that it’s going to feel SUPER uncomfortable and you are going to have to work hard to keep your brain from spiraling when it comes to charging for your coaching!
Here is my BEST hack to help you make sure that you are always charging the “right” amount as a coach:
Instead of looking at what anyone else is charging, or listening to marketing people who tell you you need to “charge what you’re worth” or sell high ticket coaching right out of the gates…. you should price based on your level of confidence and the results you can get for your clients. That’s it.
So that means you should set a price that you can say out loud confidently and feel like you will be able to OVER-deliver for your client at that price.
And you should follow this rule for the rest of your business. (Seriously, it’s STILL the main method I use for pricing my offers, even after 12 years in business).
As you get better and better at delivering great results, and your confidence goes up, you can increase your prices.
Start where you are now, and know that coaching for free isn’t a bad thing if you are brand new to coaching and don’t have much experience yet. It doesn’t mean you will be free forever, but it will be the fastest way for you to get clients in the door confidently (i.e. your mindset about charging for something you are not confident about won’t be able to get in your way), and you will be able to slap a real price tag on that coaching package once you have a few glowing testimonials from your free coaching clients!
New Life Coach Challenge #3 – Balancing a new business with EVERYTHING ELSE
Another challenge that you can expect as a new coach, especially if you are still working in a 9-5 job or being a full-time mom or anything else that takes up a lot of your time and energy…. is balancing your coaching business with other responsibilities.
Just because you decided to become a coach, I HOPE that you didn’t wake up and quit your job right away! Please please please keep your job until your coaching business is paying your bills (or til you have at least 6-12 months savings that you can totally live off!).
But how do you build a whole new business AND keep your regular life going?
Well… you don’t.
That’s right.
Usually something has to give.
It’s simple math.
If your day is currently filled to the brim, you need to make space to work on your business. This might mean outsourcing housework or childcare, clearing your social calendar to make room for dates with your business, working late night hours after your full time job, or even dropping to part-time work (if that is financially do-able for you, assuming your business brings in nothing for the first 12 months).
This also means that you need to set realistic expectations!
I swear, the downfall of SO many new business owners is that they listen to all these stories of people starting businesses and making 6-figures in 3 months or quitting their job and replacing their income right away, and these online business coaches feeding you BS about how easy it is…. that many new coaches think it’s going to happen faster than it does.
I always get asked for a timeline — how long does it really take to make full time money? And while there is no ONE answer, if I did have to just tell you what I think, I would say give yourself 2 years, minimum.
It just takes time. No one wants to hear it. But it’s the truth and I am not here to bullshit you and tell you anything different. And I would rather set you up with a realistic expectation and see you make it happen faster, than tell you it will happen in 3 months and then see you feeling terrible that you didn’t reach that goal.
All hail the power of low expectations!
Of course, there are things you can do to expedite the process … like taking a program like Uncage Your Business that will save you from wasting time on many of the most common time-sucks that new coaches get caught in and teaching you an actual strategy that was tailored for NEW businesses.
Whether you work with us or you take another course, we HIGHLY recommend getting help right away. Most coaches have zero marketing background and there is so much that you don’t even know what you don’t know, that learning from the right person can shave years off your timeline for success.
New Life Coach Challenge #4: Staying motivated and focused
Finally, one of the biggest challenges that new coaches face is staying motivated and focused.
Starting a business can be a long and difficult process as you have already heard me say above, and when it’s taking longer than you thought it would, it’s really easy to want to quit because you think you suck and no one wants what you have to offer. This is another HUGE plus about taking a course like Uncage Your Business — you can get an objective opinion about what isn’t working and changes you can make to get better results. It’s nearly impossible to do this ourselves because we are just too close to our own work.
It is also mega important to surround yourself with a supportive community, whether that be a group of other coaches or other business owners. When I was new to business I actually paid $2000 to be in a business program because I desperately needed access to a community who understood what I was trying to create! My friends and family didn’t quite get it and weren’t the best ones to turn to for support, and having other business friends that I met in that program literally saved me.
Whether you create your own mastermind and accountability group or you join a paid program (which usually gets you higher caliber people because they have been willing to invest in their growth), you can’t skip this step of having a peer group who can cheer you on when things feel shit.
The 3 biggest mindset struggles that you will likely have come up and cause you to hold yourself back are:
- Fear of rejection: It’s normal to feel like everyone is going to reject you, especially if you put your offer out and don’t get any bites, or have a consult with someone who says no to working with you…. but the truth is, it’s super normal to hear a lot of no’s before you get a yes. When I launch my program, which has a great success rate and literally 1000s of testimonials and glowing reviews, I still hear MOSTLY no’s. It’s normal! If you aren’t getting rejected, you probably aren’t putting yourself out there enough.
- Perfectionism: This is a sneaky one because it can FEEL like you are doing important work on your business when you are tinkering with your website or obsessing over a logo color, but are you reallyyyyyyyy? (The answer is no – no you are not lol)
- Imposter syndrome: When you have a proven track record in what you do, but you still believe that you are not good at it or that no one will get results if they work with you, and you feel like a fraud. This is an important one for you to work through, because if you always think your success has been a fluke, you will never have the confidence you need to put yourself out there, charge more, and actually do what needs to be done to build your business.
This kind of drama your mind creates will always show up in your business in one way or another, so you need to make sure you have a way to work with it and not get stuck in it (it’s why we have such a huge mindset component in our Uncage Your Business program, because you can have the best strategy in the world but if your mind is having a complete meltdown every time you try to implement, you will get nowhere).
Recap:
Ok so to recap, the biggest challenges you will come up against as a new coach are:
1 – getting paying clients
2 – charging confidently for your work
3 – balancing your new business with the entire rest of your life
4 – motivation to keep going and staying focused
Just because you know that these lay ahead for you doesn’t mean you are immune, but it’s SO helpful to know that these things are common and expected, so you don’t let them derail you.
Your business is just a baby and needs time for you to grow into it…. Take it at a moderate pace to keep things sustainable, get help as soon as you can, and know that it DOES get better once you start to get some traction and see positive results!
If you want help with your biz NOW and want to be prepared for all the ups and downs to come, join our year-long coaching program Uncage Your Business where we literally walk you through what to do as a new coach to help you get set up the right way and get those paying clients faster. I’d love to work with you to help you get your business working sooner! Learn more here.
