Online Side Hustle: 10 Mistakes Life Coaches Make When Creating Their Online Business
In this instructional video, Mary Schiller outlines ten common pitfalls that aspiring life coaches encounter when launching an online coaching business and offers concrete, mindset‑focused guidance to avoid them. She begins by urging coaches to openly announce their profession and leverage existing personal networks rather than waiting for a large audience. She warns against offering free coaching, treating coaching as a hobby, and failing to promise a clear client experience. Schiller stresses the need to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset, set firm boundaries, and view coaching as a professional service. She debunks the belief that more training or a fancy website is required, emphasizing that practical action, confident pricing, and straightforward selling are far more critical. Throughout, she blends personal anecdotes with actionable steps, encouraging viewers to shift from hesitation to decisive, profitable action in building their online coaching practice.
Chapters
Mistake number 1, not telling people that you're a coach. Now you may be saying, Mary, that's kind of weird. Like, if I'm a life coach, why wouldn't I tell people that I'm a life coach? Well, all I can say is that in my many years of supporting coaches who are trying to get their businesses off the ground, this is something that I see. When I started as a life coach back in 2016, you know what I did? I went through my Gmail contacts list and I emailed people personally telling them what I was up to. And I also said, if this is of interest to you, please get in touch with me. Or if you have people in your life who you think might benefit from coaching with me or talking with me, please feel free to forward my contact details. I don't really understand what the hesitancy is here, but all I know for sure is that there are people in your universe right now, people who you may be very close to who could really benefit from the work that you do, the beautiful work that you do. So let people know what you're doing. Let people know that you are a life coach. Mistake number 2, thinking you need a huge audience. Sometimes it can look to us like if we don't have a huge platform, like if we can't command thousands and thousands of people to come to see us talk on a stage or something, that we aren't legitimate life coaches. That's not true. It's not true. It can be so tempting to want to hide and to say, well, gosh, you know, maybe once I get a social media following of a few thousand, then I will feel more like a real life coach who can really put myself out there. It doesn't work like that. Every single person has started at the same exact place with zero clients, and then we get our first client, then our second, and so on. And so the whole idea here is just to get started. Don't worry about not having a huge platform or any platform at all, because that's not what's needed to get going here. And you can get going in a big way without using any sort of platform like that. You could have dozens of clients in your inner circle right now, potential clients, but they don't know what you're up to because you're not letting them know. And I don't want you to feel pressured to have to go on social media or come on YouTube or anything else like that that doesn't feel right for you. But somehow you need to tell people what you're doing and how you can help them. And don't worry about whether or not you've got a million followers or a platform the size of Beyoncé's. You don't need it. Mistake number 3: coaching for free. Oh my goodness, is this ever a big topic. I should probably do an entire video just on this issue alone. I know that in a lot of coach training programs you're encouraged to coach people for free to get practice and things like that. I totally get the concept at a certain level. At another level though, I really don't, because when we coach for free, when we literally give ourselves over to another person in this way, because life coaching is a very deep experience and we do that for free, What does that send out there into the world in terms of a message? To me, it sends a message of, I don't believe that I'm a professional. I don't believe that the work that I do is worth being paid for. I don't believe that the work I'm doing has value. That is not the kind of message that we need to be sending out there. It just isn't. So if you are tempted to coach people for free, Don't do it. You know, if you have to put a price on it, make it like $25 or something, but don't give your time away for free, even for quote unquote practice, because you're not really practicing. You're actually creating a beautiful space for someone to have a transformative experience, and that is worth something. So again, I think I will do an entire video on this topic, but please, please, please do not coach people for free. It sends the wrong message to them and to your beautiful self. Mistake number 4, treating coaching as a hobby. Now, this goes back to what I was just talking about, about not getting paid for coaching, coaching for free. But it's even bigger than that to me because being a life coach means being a life coach. It doesn't mean that I'm coaching people all the time. That wouldn't be appropriate. But it doesn't feel like something that I can just pick up like my knitting and then put down later on. It feels like a lifestyle. It feels like something that you and I are, not just something that we do. And so I get the impression from a lot of the people that I have coached over the years that they don't take it seriously. And I don't mean seriously, like, oh my gosh, this is such a heavy-duty thing. I don't mean it like that, but I do mean acting in a way that is professional and that doesn't treat coaching as just some little thing we do on the side, because it's not like that. Whether you're a life coach or some other type of coach, this is a profession. I'm going to repeat that over and over again. Coaching is a legitimate profession. It's not something that, in my view, should be taken lightly. So if you are feeling like, oh my gosh, you know, this is just something I'm doing on the side as a hobby or whatever, maybe you ought to rethink how you are looking at this profession. It's fine to start coaching on the side as a quote-unquote side hustle. Totally okay. At the same time, it needs to be treated as more than a hobby because it's a profession. Mistake number 5, not promising a result. Before I jump into this one, I would love to know in the comments if you are seeing yourself in any of these mistakes that I've mentioned so far, and if so, which one or which ones. And again, this isn't an indictment of you as a person or anything like that. I am pointing out some things that I have seen over the years from people that I have supported to get their coaching businesses off the ground, and it's always my intention to be helpful. And this one about not promising a result is a big one because I know a lot of life coaches in particular, but other types of coaches, since I do business coaching too, I get it. It's scary. It's like, oh my gosh, can I really promise someone that they're going to get a specific result? Is that something I can even guarantee? The answer is no, you can't. And now you may be thinking, Mary, well then how can I promise a result? Here's what you can do. You can promise that you will create an environment for someone to achieve a result. You will set the stage, you will give them the tools, you will give them the support You can say all of the things that you provide so that they can achieve the result that they want to achieve. It's not something that you can achieve for them. You can't guarantee a specific outcome. That is not within your control at all. But you can promise a result in the form of an experience, someplace that they will be able to learn more about themselves, an environment in which they'll be able to take steps that they haven't taken in a long time. Whatever the particulars are in your coaching situation, that is something you can absolutely promise, and it's important that you do. Mistake number 6: not acting like an entrepreneur coach. I use the phrase entrepreneur coach because we are coaches, we are life coaches, we are business coaches, whatever we are. In this case, we're talking about life coaching. But we are also entrepreneurs and we need to learn to blend the two personas together. Where I see this play out in terms of a mistake is wobbly boundaries, where you'll say to a life coaching client, yes, you can just message me anytime you feel like it and I'll respond instantly, or you can email me all the time and I will answer you on the same day. Or, oh, you want extra calls even though that's not part of our agreement? Okay, can't do that. We cannot be on all the time and expect to be running a successful business. We have to be the CEO over here as well as the coach over here. We have to learn to blend these two personas together, as I said, and ask ourselves Is this business viable the way that I'm running it right now? If I were the boss looking at this employee, would I believe that that employee was doing things effectively and efficiently, or would I be saying, you know, you are working way too many hours, you're allowing people to contact you at all hours of the day and night, that's not efficient or effective. And it is hurting your performance. So really take a look at this boundary thing because this is where I really see it. You are allowed to be offline in terms of responding to clients. You are allowed to have a life outside of the work that you do as a life coach, even though this is who you are being. You also have many other aspects of your life that need to be taken into account. So it's important to look at your life coaching not just as something that you do, but also as a business. For example, it needs to be profitable, it needs to run efficiently, it needs to run smoothly. Your employee, meaning you, can't work 24/7. So take a look at the business part and ask yourself, is this really Is this effective, what I'm doing? If it isn't, look at where things are sort of falling through the cracks and figure out how to fix it. And start with the boundaries. I guarantee you, you will find lots of things to correct in that one area. Mistake number 7, believing you need more coach training. Oh dear, this is such a big topic. It may also require another video. So many times I will be talking with a life coach and they will tell me that the reason they haven't put themselves out there in a bigger way, or really at all, is because they believe they need more coach training. And I am here to tell you, you do not need any more coach training. It may surprise you that when I started as a life coach in 2016, 2015, I didn't have any training at all and I still haven't. So I'm here to tell you that coach training is not the thing that will make or break you. And this may be a little bit controversial, I don't know, I'm going to go ahead and say it. I almost feel like the more coach training you have, the harder it is for you to get started in your actual business because it's like, 'Oh, well, I don't know this piece yet. I don't know that piece yet. You know, there's too many things for me to know yet before I can start to really coach people effectively.' It's just not true. If you yourself have experienced something that you know is transformational, that's all you need. Now, I know also that this is a bigger topic around certification and all these things. Perhaps there are some coaching areas where you do need to be certified, like in health coaching or something like this. But for the majority of life coaches that I have been working with over the years, there is no certification needed. And the only thing you need is a willingness to step forward and offer to help people. You don't need more coach training. I remember one person I spoke to not that long ago as I'm recording this video who had been training for 4 years and said they weren't ready to coach people. I don't get it. You don't need someone to confer some sort of permission before you can start your life coaching business and start charging. Remember, don't coach for free. So please, if that thought occurs to you, oh, I need more coach training, I need more coach training to do this better. Set that off to the side and go out there and do it and charge for your time. Mistake number 8: not learning how to sell. A lot of the coaches, particularly life coaches, that I have worked with are really nervous about selling. A, as we talked about, they're afraid to charge anything for what they do, and B, once they do have a price that they've decided on, they're afraid to tell people about it. They're afraid to sell. You know what selling actually is? It's not a big mystery. All you're doing is inviting someone to take the next step. They've heard what you have on offer, you've told them how much it costs, and then you're saying, if you would like to take the next step with me, here is how to pay. That's literally what selling is about. It's not about trying to strong-arm people or trying to overcome their objections or whatever else. That is just not what selling is about. I don't like any of that stuff. That's not what I have ever done in my own coaching business, and I don't like those kinds of selling practices. It's really just saying, you know who I am now, and if you like what you see, here's how much it costs to work with me and here's how you can sign up. I mean, could it be any simpler than that? Not really, but you gotta learn and you gotta practice doing it. Mistake number 9, thinking you can't charge real money. Many coaches I talk to, again, particularly life coaches, really don't believe that they can charge good money for what they do. We've talked about the fact that many life coaches are nervous about charging anything. Then it's another leap to think, gosh, could I charge $1,000 a month? $2,000 a month for life coaching? The answer is yes, of course you can. All you have to do is look around. Are life coaches charging a lot of money for what they do? Yes, they are. And you know why? Because this is transformational work. You are really giving someone the space to change their life. I mean, how much is that actually worth? It's difficult to even think about putting a price on that, which means that you can really kind of charge anything that you want as long as you charge something. But you can make real money. And my belief is that if you are doing life coaching as your profession, then it needs to be paying the bills and then some. You deserve that. You can't be scraping the bottom of the barrel just trying to get $5 here, $10 here, $20 there, it's not going to cut it. You're going to get really tired of working in that way. If you charge more for what you do, you can work with fewer people, especially if you're doing a lot of one-to-one coaching and that's what you enjoy doing. You can work with fewer people and start to hit those income goals that you really need to make this a viable business. So if you're looking for permission to charge real money, consider it granted. Mistake number 10, thinking you need a fancy website. Before I dive into mistake number 10, I would love to have you subscribe to this channel if you have found this video valuable, and please check the description below the video for helpful resources. Do you need a website? No, you don't. You absolutely don't. There is one life coach who I know of, I'm not going to mention their name, who has a super successful business. And the last time I checked, the website just said under construction or under development. And it's been like that for like 5 years. And really, this is a very, very, very successful life coach. You don't need a fancy website. You need to be somewhere that people can find you If you want to have a website, of course you can, but it can literally be one page with a contact me form and that's it. I see so many life coaches getting bogged down in this aspect of having an online coaching business, and I just want to say stop, stop, stop. This is a creative distraction from actually putting yourself out there and having wonderful clients find you. So you do not need a fancy website. You don't need a website at all, as long as you are connecting with people in some way, shape, or form that resonates with you. Thank you so much for watching today, and I can't wait to talk to you again soon. Bye for now.
