If I Wanted a Coaching Client as Fast as Possible, I'd Do This

In 2023, I was stuck at $30,000 a year in my coaching business, and I was working 50+ hours every single week, never knowing where my next client was coming from. But in 2024, I hit my first 6-figure year as an online coach working just 20 hours a week because I simplified my business and focused on the few things that actually got me clients. So in this video, I'm gonna show you how I'd get a coaching client as fast as possible if I had to start over again. Now first, stop being a general coach who coaches everyone. Instead become a specialist in solving one core problem. You see, the biggest problem in the coaching industry is that the barrier to entry is so low. I was on Instagram the other day and I got this advertisement that said, become a certified coach over the weekend for $7. My BS meter has never rang that hard. But the crazy thing is that while the barrier to entry is so low, the expectations of success are so high. People read a book like You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero and it changes their life and it opens up their horizons. And then they realize that they can become a coach of some kind and then coach people on similar things and get paid. But with all this guru nonsense out there, they think that they're just going to hit 6 or even 7 figures plus in the first year of getting started. What happens is most people struggle so hard to actually get clients and they're working so hard with nothing actually happening that they're thinking, why am I even doing this? What is the point? And then they quit, which is really unfortunate because there's so many people out there who need to hear your message from you. Because your stories, the way your viewpoints, the way you see things, that resonates with them. One of the biggest reasons that people can't get clients is because they are trying to just be this general coach helping everybody with everything, and they don't have a clear lane that they're in and are positioned as a specialist in something. Most coaches start out as life coaches or mindset coaches, and then they wonder why it's so hard to get clients. But think about it, nobody's going to the internet to be like, I need a mindset coach. No, they have a problem in their life that they want to solve. And mindset is incredibly important, but they're not looking for a mindset coach per se. They want someone who has expertise and experience in solving this problem that can help them. And if mindset is a part of that, which is going to be, that's totally okay. But they're not paying for the mindset coaching. The thing about business is that business is all about solving people's problems. And quite frankly, you are not in the coaching business. You're in the sales and marketing business. And the sooner you figure that out and accept that, the sooner you will start to prioritize the things that that actually make you enough money and get people into the world of you actually coaching them. If my car goes out, which it did the other week, and I cannot fix it myself, I call my mechanic because I trust him. He always does a good job. He's affordable, but he solves my problem because I need my car to get around. Coaching businesses are no different, and most coaches struggle because they're just playing around in this vague stuff that sounds cool on the internet, or maybe they saw some celebrity start offering it, but it's like people aren't buying for the thing, they're really buying to talk to the celebrity. So if you don't know what big problem you can be a specialist in, look at your life because you have solved big problems. I want you to think about the things that actually kept you up at night. What big problems have you solved in your life that maybe took you months or even years to figure out how to do? Maybe it was starting or growing a business. Maybe it was learning how to get good at doing pottery. Or maybe you sucked at online dating before or dating women in general, And then now you're really good at it and you can get dates anywhere you go 'cause you know how to strike up the right conversations and go on a date with just about anyone you want. There are so many people who are struggling and staying up at night in the place that you used to be, and you are most qualified to serve the person that you once were. Brownie points if people are actively coming up to you and asking you for advice on your relationship because you and your spouse have this amazing relationship and everyone's like, how the heck are you guys doing that? How are y'all so happy? So our goal is to fill out this simple phrase. I help specific person get specific result, and this becomes your elevator pitch. If it takes you longer than 5 seconds to tell me who you help and what you help them do, you're going to lose my attention. So we want to create something clear and dead simple that anyone could understand that's based around things that you have actually done in your life. For example, we could say, I help men over 40 get lean and stay lean all year round. I help authors turn their books into paid speaking opportunities. I help parents stop yelling and build better connections with their kids. Now, the key here, what's going to make you successful as a coach is if you actually done this. If you are a man over 40 and you are lean and you stay lean all year round and you used to be a fat kid, it's not because of genetics. It's because you have the right kind of habits and you know how to manage your food and your diet and exercise and all that kind of stuff. But so many men over 40 are struggling with that because their testosterone drops. They're like, wish I could have a body like I did before, back in college or high school or whatever. If you're a living example of that, getting clients is so much easier because they believe you. But what we don't want to do are vague things, which is what most coaches do, and say things like, I help business owners grow, I help women level up their life, I help people find happiness and reach spiritual enlightenment. Like, what are you talking about? Those are not things that keep me up at night. Obviously, people want to level up in their life. They do want to grow, but for specific reasons. For example, if you're a confidence coach, everybody wants to be more confident, but they want to be more confident at specific things. So a confidence coach teaching people about the principles of developing confidence is going to be way more successful if they're actually helping people get confident so they can speak on stages. Or if it's like guys getting into dating, you are really a confidence coach because you're helping these guys be confident enough in themselves to actually approach women. Solve real problems for real people and do not be one of the coaches who's solving these made-up little stories that they think sounds good instead of just solving the problems that you've actually solved in your life for other people. So the key with this statement is when you say the specific person, they can raise their hand and say, that's me. And when you say the specific outcome you're helping them get, they say, that's the outcome I want. I'm a man over 40. I want to get lean and stay lean year round, just like you. Tell me more. How do I do it? Now you have their interest. So once I got that statement down and I knew exactly who I was helping and what I was helping them do, the next thing I would do is stop offering strategy sessions. If you keep offering strategy sessions, you will stay broke. But if you offer a real solution, you'll actually make money. No one wants to spend their precious time on another strategy session or discovery call or a clarity call because those things do not promise a clear outcome. Also, the market is smart enough at this point to know that those types of calls are really just glorified sales calls and they don't want to be wrapped into some uncomfortable conversation where people are just pitching them nonstop, which is what most people do. I really believe that we need to serve our way to success, and we do that by not acquiring clients, by chasing clients. We do it by creating clients, as Rich Lippman would teach. In his amazing book, The Prosperous Coach. So in order to create a client, we need to offer an actual solution that gives them a taste of working with us and that tees up your core offer or program as an obvious solution. So here's a couple examples of what this can look like in some different industries. Let's say that I built a YouTube channel to 1 million subscribers, and now I'm helping other people grow their YouTube channels, and I've been successful at it. Then instead of me offering strategy sessions, I can offer YouTube channel audits to people. And what we do on these calls is sit down and I'm going to audit their channel and show them what they're doing well, what they're not doing as well. We'll look at the data and actually unpack their channel and their thumbnails, all that kind of stuff, so that they have clarity and feedback on what they're doing well, but also what needs work. And if they like the conversation, the experience, naturally they're going to want to know, can we keep doing this? Because this has been great. Something that I've done in my business, being a business coach for online businesses, coaches and consultants and experts and stuff, is that I like to offer a free website and funnel review. And these have made me a ton of money because a huge problem that coaches and experts have when they're online is that they put so much time or money into building this crazy funnel and this product, and no matter how many offers they create, no one's buying from them. So naturally it brings in the right people for me to sit down with them and show them what they're doing well, what they could work on, and how they can improve it. And then we talk about working together. 9 times out of 10, by the way, it's not even the funnel or the website. It's their positioning, who they're helping, what they're helping them do, and what it is that they're offering them. And is it really juicy enough? Because if that stuff is, the funnel is easy. Now, let's say that you're a dating coach. Instead of you just saying, let's do a discovery call to talk about working together, you can offer a free dating profile review or conversation feedback where you talk with the guy and say, hey, how about this? Let's sit down for an hour and we're going to go through your dating profile. And I'll give you some pointers on your dating profile, but we'll also look at the message threads that you've been sending to these women and we'll unpack why they haven't been replying or booking dates with you. Is that way more compelling? And if you're in something like the spirituality space, you could do a nervous system and energy audit. An energy audit is big because you're not really helping people make money per se, but you are helping them in another currency, which is their energy or maybe their time. They want to feel more at peace. So offering an energy audit is really cool. Whatever it is that you decide to do, the biggest thing is that you are offering an actual solution. I'm going to unpack your dating profile. We're going to audit your YouTube channel. Let's actually look at your funnel instead of me just talking to you for an hour trying to convince you to join my program. I'm going to serve you because at the end of the day, coaching sells coaching. I just did my first of many YouTube workshops because I've made a lot of money through YouTube despite not having a massive audience. And I've been paid by many people to help them grow their channels and make a ton of money from their channels. Without a big audience or even being YouTube monetized. I hosted this event that was a YouTube workshop for coaches and experts, and it was about how you can position your channel, come up with good content ideas, script your videos, etc., so that people discover you and actually want to buy from you. I'll link it down below in the description so you can go watch the replay. I had 30 people show up to this 2-hour event that was live, and I didn't just pitch them for 2 hours. I had people engaging. I would teach a point and then I would open the floor to have people raise their hand and I would coach them through different aspects of their YouTube channel, because I understand that immersion creates conversion and that coaching sells coaching. And by doing that one workshop, which quite frankly I just threw up a week before I actually hosted it and I still got 30 people onto it, I had already generated to this date of this recording $12,000 from that one event. And I have more calls booked for next week. We are in a trust recession and people have been burned or they are skeptical of the coaching industry still for good reason, because the barrier to entry is so low. So when you create something that's an actual solution for your people because you understand them, you know what they're struggling with because you've walked in their shoes, it's so much easier to sell expertise. So if you take anything from this conversation, just understand that people pay money to solve problems, and your job as a coach is to create and offer better solutions. Which leads me to my next point, and that is just to make more offers. The single biggest reason that coaches fail and they quit on this is because they do not make enough offers. Instead, what they do is hide behind their computers, building pages, adjusting their website, and building products like digital products and funnels and all this stuff, because that stuff feels productive. But if you're not doing the vulnerable work of actually making offers, you are not going to make money. People would rather spend the time creating offers and then never really doing anything with them instead of actually making offers, which is a big distinction. The reason I went from being stuck at $30K a year for a couple years and jumping to $100K in just 12 months is simply because I made more and better offers. That is it. And the biggest catalyst for me even doing that is because I had a coach of mine ask me this simple question, James Allen, how many offers have you made this month? When he asked me that, I felt like a deer in headlights because despite me working so many hours building online courses, landing pages, funnels, even posting content on social media every single day, I was not doing the one thing that actually makes me money. Which is just making more offers. And when I jumped to $100K, it's because every single week I was filling my days with conversations. Here's exactly how I did it. This is a framework I've developed over the years and teach now. It's called Connect, Inspire, Invite. So the first thing that we want to do is connect with the people who fit the type of person that, you know, you can help. Going back to our statement earlier, I help specific person get specific result. If yours was I help men get more dates using apps, then you should be prioritizing connecting with men who would be interested in getting more dates. It could be whether they're using apps or they're not. If you help men get— if you help men over 40 get lean and stay lean, then how can you surround yourself with men over 40 who want to get lean and stay lean year round? If you help Christian women start and grow their own online business, then how can you connect with more Christian women who want to start or grow an online business? You can go to church. You can reach out to your friends who Christian women. You can go to a different church, like you can join a community online. There's so many ways that you can simply just connect, and that is a whole point of step number 1. And it gets so much easier when you know the specific type of person you're helping and the result you're helping them get. So once you've connected with people, you want to inspire them to see and feel that what you can help them do is possible for them. The easiest way to inspire people to take action is to get them to feel that I can do this. This is not only possible, but it's possible for me. And the way you do that is by telling great stories. When you share the story of yourself experiencing this result that they really want to experience, like being a man over 40 who wants to get lean and stay lean year round, that was you at some point. And now that you are a man over 40 who is lean and you're staying lean all year round, you've done it for years, you are literally inspiring just looking at you and talking to you and the way that you think about things because you have walked the path. And then when you show people a couple strategies or some tweaks that they can make and you share stories of how you've helped other people just like them in their specific situation get this amazing result of being lean and staying lean year round despite testosterone dropping and all that kind of stuff. All that's going to do is inspire this person to be like, dang, you've done it. You've helped other people do it. Could you help me? And that's where we go to step number 3, which is to invite them to take the next step in helping them achieve their goals. This could be inviting them to your YouTube channel audit to a free website or funnel review. It could be the dating profile audit. It's whatever your thing is that you're helping these people get. Obviously, it has to be congruent. You know, if I'm helping guys get more dates using apps and we're chatting at an event and I'm like, oh yeah, dude, like, let me look at your profile and just kind of going over a couple of things. You're like, hey, one of the other thing is the messaging, but how about we spend an hour and we'll go over your profile in more depth and then we'll also take a look at your messages. And I'll give you some pointers to help you do it. We're just kind of busy at this event. Like, I mean, you could even do it at the event realistically, but always invite them to take a next step. And then when you help them on that call, then you invite them to your program. Beautiful thing about this framework, Connect, Inspire, Invite, is that you can do this on a stage. You can create your own stage or go on somebody else's stage. You can do this on a podcast, in your content. Right now, this video, you connected with me because you clicked on this episode.. And then throughout this episode, I have hopefully inspired you to realize that you can do this stuff. And then of course, I'm going to invite you to watch my training or do something that dives in deeper with me and see if it makes sense. That is how the game works. It could be one-to-many or it could be one-to-one. It doesn't matter. Connect with the people you want to help, inspire them to show that it is not only possible, but it is possible for you, and then invite them to take the next step in actually getting that result. My YouTube workshop is a prime example too. I connected with people by running some ads, sending out the signals, to my people. I said, hey, I'm putting together this awesome YouTube workshop. It's for this person. We're going to help you get this result. I had 30 people show up to it and it was the first one I've ever done. So I'm going to get better at it the more that I do it. And people stayed for 2 hours to listen to me talk about YouTube and obviously get some questions answered too. But some of those people felt so inspired because they believe that I can make YouTube work. It's not as complex as I thought it was. And then I invited them to join my program or to reach out and at least learn more about the program.. And that's exactly what people did. Connect, inspire, invite. This is the work that actually makes you money. It's not tweaking your website. It's not building another digital product. It's prioritizing conversations and making better offers that people actually care about, that they can see, this is actually gonna solve my problem because that's what's gonna make 'em pull out their wallet and pay you. And if you're nervous about the idea of selling, watch this video next and I will destroy Your Fear of Selling in Just 58 Seconds. If this video is helpful, please like it and share it with someone that you think would benefit from it. That all sends signals to YouTube that says my content is good and I would really appreciate it. On top of that, if you have any questions or comments, leave a comment down below. I would love to answer your questions about how you can get clients and grow your coaching business. As always, take what you learned here, get out there, make something happen. I'll see you in the next one.