Build your Coaching Business: What to charge clients

Hello, I'm Katie McManus. I'm a certified professional coactive coach, and I also work with coaches helping them start their business. And this is my new series. So you want to start a coaching business. Very exciting. I'm excited for you, and I want to make sure that you do it in the best way possible. And first of all, I want to talk about pricing. So many coaches starting out because they're nervous and because they feel like they don't have a lot of experience. And because of a multitude of reasons, they undercharge and they think, okay, cool. Like, if I get a hundred clients, If I charge $100 an hour and I get 40 clients a week, then I will make, what is that, 4,000 a week times 52. So that's almost 200,000. That's over $200,000. Great math. I love it. I love, you know, how ambitious you are about filling your practice. What you're not thinking about, however, is that 40 clients a week is going to be exhausting for you. Most coaches I know don't accept more than four sessions a day because it is taxing. Another thing to think about is that you need a time to find these clients. They're not just going to come knock on your door once you get certified, so. Or there's not going to be a wave of Internet visits to your website, and people are just going to click and buy coaching from this person. Right? Now, I really wish that were the case. It would make life a lot easier. But you do need to work on marketing, doing online videos, reaching out, asking for referrals, things like that. Realistically, it's 20 sessions a week. Maybe. Maybe. And that's even carrying 40 clients at a time is going to be pretty challenging. So I recommend that you start off with what your goal is to make per year before taxes, and then just divide it by 12, figure out what you need to make each month, and then divide that by however many clients you think you can handle until you come to a price that seems reasonable and that you can survive on. Because if you can't survive on what you're making from coaching, you're not going to make it as a coach. Okay. And you're not going to be able to help all the people that you want to help. So I just want to get real right there. Also, I hear this objection all the time about, isn't coaching like therapy and therapists only charge so much and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I get it. I get it. Yes. Therapy and coaching, they're very Very similar fields. The main difference is that therapy has been around for a really long time, and it's also a medical field. You know, it's. Doctors refer people to therapy. Unfortunately, we're not at the point where doctors are referring people to coaching. Also, because it is medical insurance companies are involved. Okay, so you have companies that are subsidizing people's visits to their therapists. You know, we do have corporate clients. It takes a long time to get there, though. We don't have people who. I mean, maybe you have one client who has a rich uncle who's subsidizing their coaching. Wonderful. But it's not a system. So we don't have the system set up that therapists do to have business sent to us. So you need to be able to charge enough so that you can survive, so that you will have time to do your marketing, so that you will have time to do outreach things for new clients, and so that you will have time to service the clients that you have in a way that they'll be happy, stay with you, and or leave and send you good referrals. Okay, so I hope I've busted a couple thoughts around pricing and guilt around it. If not, then contact me. I want to talk to you and make sure I can bust some more. Anyway, I'm Katie McManus. I'm a coach, and I work with other coaches to help them build their business. If you need any support in any of those areas, please reach out to me. I look forward to having you watch my next video in this series. Okay, thanks so much. Have a great day.