How to Start a Coaching Business Online (7-Figure Blueprint)

Starting a coaching business sounds exciting until you actually try to start one. Do I need a website? Do I need a logo? Do I need to set up a company structure or LLC first? Do I need followers? Do I need testimonials? Do I need a certification? It's extremely overwhelming because it is a big decision, plus the legitimate concern of what if no one buys, or what if this fails? And to make it even worse, You may have watched 3 other videos on YouTube that all give conflicting advice, or maybe advice that's not specifically tailored to you. And in the meantime, you still haven't made a single dollar. Now, the definition of actually having an official business is when someone has officially paid you money in exchange for your product and service. So that's the official start of a business. But here's the problem: most people start a coaching business by focusing on looking legitimate first before they've gotten paid. If you want to start a coaching business the right way, the first step is not a logo, it's not a website, it's not even content— it's revenue. And in this video here, I'm going to walk you through the 6 steps, step by step, on how to start a coaching business as a beginner in the right order and sequence so you don't have to waste the next 6 months building something that no one buys. And yes, I'll show you how to get paid before even posting any content, and also be sharing the number one factor that dictates how much money you will make, and it is nothing to do with your offer or niche. By the way, if we haven't met yet, my name is Richmond Dinh, and we help beginner coaches start and launch their coaching businesses online. And we have helped literally thousands— not hundreds, but thousands— of coaches get their first paying clients online. Our methods have been endorsed by the likes of Russell Brunson, Myron Golden, Pedro O'Dea, Ryan Omar Khatchatourian, and many others as well. I'm a published author and I've spoken on some of the world's biggest stages, and so I share that with you to reassure you that you're in the right place. So back to the topic of this video here. Now I want to describe two big important principles in business, regardless of what business you're going into, because this will set the tone of whether or not you are going to be successful in business or or not. Now, the most important factor when you're starting out a business is to be able to pick an industry that is booming. So every business has a life cycle. A business has a birth, it has a peak, and it has a death. And so it's critically important that when you're going into business, you pick a business that is on the cusp of a boom. What do I mean? So if you wanted to buy a property in a property market that's going up, you could be an idiot, you could be a noob, you could be a beginner, and if you buy a property where the industry is booming, you will make a lot of money. And that's why you probably know a lot of people in your life, maybe your parents or an aunt or uncle, or maybe it might be yourself that bought a property 10 years ago 20 years ago, 30 years ago in a booming economy and that property has doubled in price or 5x in price or for some people it's 10x in price because the market went up and you weren't even that clever in property. But the converse is also true. If you buy a property in an industry that's collapsing in a declining market, you could be the best property investor but you will get destroyed by the market and we all know what happened in 2008 during the GFC. And so the most important decision you need to make when you're getting into business is what industry am I going into? Because I could be the smartest business person, but if I go into industry that is dying, I'm done. But if I go in industry that is going up, then I'm in good hands. And all boats rise with a rising tide. But no matter how good your boat is, if the tide is going down, you are going to go down with it. Now, let me give you some examples of booming industries right now. AI, data services, cybersecurity, solar, EV, and guess what? You're in luck. The coaching industry is also booming and it's around about there. How do we know it's booming? Well, statistics are showing that it's growth and growth and growth on year and it's got projections. You can find this on all online. But also we know that the coaching space is booming because it's not regulated, which is a good thing, but also sometimes a bad thing because anyone can be a coach right now. So because it's not regulated, governments are not gonna put restrictions on it. It's got a long run rate, but it's been growing year on year on year. And all the statistics show that we still got maybe a decade or two before it reaches its peak. So you are in good hands. Now here are industries that are not booming that I would stay away from. You definitely don't want to get into the newspaper industry. That is not booming. That is actually declining. You don't want to get into the radio industry. Traditional TV is dying. Coal mining is dying because of energy resources. Commercial printing is dying. What else is dying? You definitely don't want to get into taxi industry because Uber destroyed that. I remember back in the day to get a taxi license, actual taxi number plate,. It used to cost about $450,000. Now, no one wants to buy it. You can't even sell it for $50,000. That industry is going down. Imagine trying to get into Blockbuster Video right now. Well, that industry is dead. And so there's industries, no matter how good you are, you are going to be destroyed if it's going down. But if you pick an industry that's going up, you could be a complete beginner and make a killing. So that's the first principle I want to talk about. Is the industry you're picking. So if you're watching this video, you're probably thinking about starting a coaching business. I want to reassure you that you're definitely picking the right industry. So that gives you some security and reassurance. The only caveat is to, to go up with a rising tide, for your boat to rise with the market, your boat must need to be in the water. It can't be on the shore watching the tide go up. While all your friends and all your colleagues are making money and you're not. You need to actually put the boat in the water and then tide will ride up with you. So that's the first principle. The second principle about business on whether or not you're going to make money or not is understand this, and this will stand the test of time. People will always want two things: convenience or speed. And so if you can help someone get something easier with less effort or get it faster, you're always going to win in business. And so that's a really big picture principle for you to understand. When you sell convenience or when you sell speed, you will win in business. Think about this. I want you to imagine where you live right now, especially if you're a parent. Now, if you are living in a suburb that's next to your kids' schools or close to your kids' schools, the reason why you live there is because of convenience, because it's not too far from school. Now, if you don't have kids, you probably live near where you work because it's convenient to get to work unless you're working from home. Or you may like to live near a train station or a bus stop or with public transport or near freeway because those things give you convenience. So people choose where they live on the basis of convenience and that's the majority of people. Yeah, you might be that 1% that's watching this right now and saying, I like to live in the country, I like to live away from no one, but that's because maybe you have an online business, you don't need to travel close to work and you don't have kids that have schools that are next door to each other. You know what I mean? So the vast majority that are watching right now, where you live right now is based on your desire for speed and convenience. It might be close to shops. And the whole idea of property prices going up when a shopping centre is built near there or a train station is built there, the reason why property prices go up is because now that property is more desirable because it's convenient to live there and it's faster to get to places from there. Convenience and speed. That's— really understand that principle because that will make you a ton of money. I want you to think of it this way. I talked about Netflix. Being destroyed. I mean, Blockbuster being destroyed by Netflix because Netflix, what did they do? They made streaming and watching videos more convenient. Because remember back in the day where you had to, I mean, depending on how old you are, you have to actually hire a video, go to the store, choose it, and then go back and then watch it, and then you have to return in time before you get a late fee. That's extremely inconvenient. Whereas Netflix said you can just watch it in the comfort of your home, you can browse it on your computer, or or your TV, put it on, and you don't have to worry about late fee. That's why they destroyed Blockbuster, because they sold convenience and speed. The reason why Uber destroyed taxi is because they removed one part of the whole payment processing, which is that when you, remember the first time you ordered an Uber? It was amazing because they had your credit card details, they had everything inside the app, and you ordered, the Uber came to your door, you got in, and when it dropped you off, all you need to do was walk out. You didn't have to wait for a taxi to like sit there and double park, and you're paying by cash, or you're trying to pull the credit card out, and you're fussing around for 2 or 3 minutes, and it's extremely inconvenient. Sometimes there's a bit of pressure there because you're being beeped by the car behind you. And that one process which Uber removed destroyed the whole taxi industry because they started to sell Convenience. They didn't win because they were cheaper, they won because they removed steps. Hotels market high-speed Wi-Fi. You pick hotels based on the speed of Wi-Fi. When you travel overseas, one of the most important things when traveling is, does it have high-speed internet? Because that's what you want. People want things easier or faster. Think about how Anytime Fitness, the world's largest franchise gym on the planet, dominates the fitness market and they don't have the best gyms. I'm a member of Anytime Fitness and I know the gyms are not that great, but I value the fact that I can go anytime, anywhere around the world because it's convenient. And I travel a lot for the job that I do right now in our coaching space, and last year I went on 10 international trips And every time I travel internationally, I look for an Anytime Fitness, and there's always an Anytime Fitness within 10 minutes away from anywhere that I travel to. It is so convenient for me to work out because of Anytime Fitness, even though it's not the best gym. But what's more important to me and most of the world is actually having a convenient location and time for you to work out. And that's why Anytime Fitness dominates the fitness and gym space without being the best gym because they sell convenience and speed. And so those are two principles I want you to really understand. The fact that you go into a booming market, and if you sell convenience and/or speed, you're going to win. So now I'm going to go through the 6 steps, the 6 steps to starting a coaching business. Step number 1 is really simple. And I've mentioned it already. Number 1, pick a booming industry. Now you've already done that by watching this video. You're starting an online coaching business, you're already picking a booming industry. So that step has already been done. You're definitely not picking a declining industry, and if this industry was declining, you bet that this video wouldn't be here and I wouldn't be shooting this video and I'll be thinking about getting out to another industry fast. So that's awesome. Big green tick for that. Step 2 in starting an online coaching business is decide who you're going to serve. And this is a big sticking point for a lot of beginners, but I want to give you some guidance and help with this and give you some examples of why this is really, really important. Now, if you've read the book How to Win Friends and Influence People, great book to read, One of the most important principles in influence is remembering someone's name because a person's name is the most— what is it— the most greatest sound to their ears. And if you're at a big party or in a group and someone screams out your name like, "Hey, Richmond!" I'm gonna hear that from across the room because that's my name and it's recognizable to me. But if they screamed out John or Mary, or Jane, I'm not going to hear it because it's not my name. Now, deciding on your who is like screaming out your ideal client's name when you start to market to them. That's why it's important. Otherwise, they're not going to hear you if you try to serve everybody. So here are some things you can do to identify your who, and I'll give you some examples. This is called niching. This is called finding out your ideal clients. So you can niche down by age. So you help people over 40 or under 40, or over 60, under 60. You can niche through sex, meaning gender, males or females. You can niche through race, Asians, Caucasians, Singaporeans, Chinese, Vietnamese, German, French. You can do race. You can niche down through religion— Christians, Muslims, Catholics, Jewish. You can niche down through geography on where people live, the location. You can niche down on the stage of life— elderly, menopause, retirees, adolescents. You can niche down on hobbies, whether like a Star Wars fan, whether they like modeling, whether they like certain clothes or fashion. You can niche down on industry professional health services, corporates, whatever industry you're in. So those are some categories you can niche down to: age, gender, race, religion, geography, stage of life, hobbies, or industry. And all you need to do is pick at least one of them, ideally two or three, but one to start with. Because when you niche down into one of those categories, you're going to be able to scream out to ideal clients' name, because the person's name is the most, is the most best sound to their ear. So I'll give you some examples why this is important. Okay, so if you've ever watched, uh, what is it, Shark Tank. If you watch Shark Tank, one of my favorite episodes in Shark Tank was the guy who created Scrub Daddy. You know that yellow scrub? And he crushed it, and that company is now valued at over a quarter of a billion dollars, and it was on Shark Tank. Now, he invented a dishwashing scrub, but who uses a dishwashing scrub? He identified his who. He said, this is not a dishwashing scrub for anyone who washes dishes because anyone is no one. Everyone is no one. People is everybody, which is nobody. He said, this is called the Scrub Daddy. This is for daddies who wash dishes. So he identified that this particular scrub is for men. It's for dads. It's like for people who want things like really like get down there and scrub it really, really hard. And that went viral because he spoke to his ideal avatar for men, for dads. And now everybody uses it. My wife uses it. But because he started speaking to his ideal client, it started screaming louder. Now, had he invented the scrub everybody, no one's going to listen to it because it now just drowns out in the noise.. And in this industry of scrubbing for dishes, there had been no category for daddies, and that's why he crushed it. I'll give you another example. So this Neuragum here— by the way, I don't get anything, I don't get any affiliates for this— this Neuragum, also on Shark Tank, they declined, they declined the offers that the Sharks gave for Neuragum, but now the company is worth, I think, about $80 million. Now, Neuragum is designed for professionals and entrepreneurs, for those achieving type people. Who need more focus, clarity, and energy. It's not designed for elderly, it's not designed for kids, but he said like, this is a gum for people on the go, professionals, entrepreneurs, to get more focus and more clarity. And because of that, it started crushing. Let me give you some examples in the coaching space. So you could be a life coach for everybody because you can serve everybody, or you can be a life coach for single moms.. And when you decide to be a life coach for single moms, then every single mom that hears that term, they'll be like, oh, that person's speaking to me. But if you say I'm a life coach for everybody, no one's going to hear that anymore. So you need to decide to niche down. So single moms is clearly a gender, and it's clearly a, like, kind of like a stage of life. And so now we're niching down to two categories. It's gender and stage of life. Single moms, it's not single parents, It's single moms. So single moms is a stage of life and also a gender. And so life coach for single moms is way better than life coach for everyone. Now I'll give you another example. You could be a grief coach for everyone because at some point you're going to go through grief. And I did when my mom passed away about 9 years ago, and I went through a lot of grief. But what if you said, I'm a grief coach for widows? Only for widows. Then you are going to scream a lot louder because now you've niched down to widows. Or you could be a grief coach for fathers. Not many grief coaches for fathers, definitely underserved market. One of my clients, he said, I'm a grief coach for everyone, and he wasn't getting any traction, he wasn't getting any clients. And I mean, what do you mean for everyone? Like, if they lost a dog, do you help them grieve? I do that too. Yep, for everyone grieving. And the moment we decided to help him niche down, because he was an elderly gentleman, and he said, niche down, you should niche down to become a grief coach for lonely elderly men, because there's a lot of men out there who've lost their wives, they might be in their 70s, and they're feeling really alone and they're grieving. And the moment he started to niche down to that, then his message sung louder, and he started getting paying clients. Why is that important? Because when you try to be something for everyone, then you become no one. And so you need to identify who you're going to serve. The good news is it's not a tattoo. You're allowed to change it, and you don't need to fully marry yourself to it, and you're allowed to test it out. And if you don't like it, it's completely okay. So that's step number 2, is decide who your ideal client is. Now step number 3 is this: you need to pick a problem that that who has. Just one pain point, one problem, ideally something that you have the competency to solve. Don't try to fake it until you make it. Don't do that. And, and here's the most important thing: pick a problem they have, not a desire. People pay to resolve pain rather than to gain pleasure. And when you can pick at a pain, you are going to make more money than trying to sell a pleasure. Let me give you an example. Imagine I invented a new cleaning product that cleans toilets perfectly clean to the point that you could eat dinner off it. Now, what's going to sell better? This toilet cleaner cleans the toilet so well that you can eat dinner off it, or this toilet cleaner cleans your toilet in one spray without you having to scrub anything or do anything else. It's you spray and go and you're done because you don't have the time to clean toilets and you're not a toilet cleaner. See how the second one speaks to the pain of the inconvenience and the hassle and the mundane part about cleaning a toilet? No one wants to scrub. No one wants to pour the liquid there. No one wants to sit there cleaning toilets all the time. It's a waste of time. It's dirty. It's gross. This is a spray that removes all the hassle and the time. Now, I'd rather buy something that removes the hassle from me cleaning a toilet than something that I can eat off. So people will pay for things that remove pain over things that give them pleasure. And so that's why you want to pick a problem first, not a desire. Pick a problem that you want to solve. Let me give you an example. Now, if you help single moms overcome guilt or overwhelm or the difficulty balancing it all, you will have a problem that people are willing to pay, single moms willing to pay, over helping single moms get more freedom. People pay for their problems to be solved over their desires. I'll give you another example. For the widow example, you can help them overcome grief or feeling lonely or how to love again. Now, those are problems that widows have. Now, the desire that widows have is to be fulfilled, to feel joy again, but you're not going to sell that because that's not gonna sell. You don't try to get a widow to joy or fulfillment or live a happy life. They're in pain. So help people get out of their pain. Help people solve their problem. In business coaching, yes, coaches want to get to $100K. They want to get full-time. But the reality is their problem is they're really stuck and overwhelmed on how to get their first paying client. See the difference there? Because when you sell that you solve the problem, you will start to make more money. So step number 3 is pick one problem that you can solve for that who. That's 3. Now number 4 is this: create a simple offer for that problem. But here's the key: the offer must sell Convenience or speed or both. What do I mean by this? Remember, people want things quicker or easier with less work. That's what people want regardless of what business you're in. If you can help someone get something without the complication, with less effort, with being lazier, or get that faster or both, you're going to win. And so this is how I would create an I help statement for your offer. This is the part where when you get this right, it is going to be a game changer for you. But if you get it wrong, you'll be wondering why you're not making money. So your I help statement should convey those two things. It would be I help who— your ideal client, right? Solve problem in— this is the key— shorter time. What's the time frame? Without And then this is the second key: without the inconvenience. Okay, so let me give you some examples. Okay, I help single moms overcome years of mommy guilt in less than 5 days. Without adding more responsibility to their plate. So you help them solve the problem, which is years of mommy guilt, but you're selling speed in a short amount of time without— I don't want more responsibility, I want less responsibility, I want less work, I want more support, I just don't want to have more work on my plate to actually solve this. So now this I help statement sticks. Rather than saying, I'm just a life coach for single moms and that's what I do, I just help them have a better life. No. I help single moms resolve years of mommy guilt in less than 5 days without adding more responsibilities to their plate. I'll give you another example. I help beginner coaches get their first paying client in less than 5 days without posting any content because it's inconvenient to post content. It's a hassle learning how to do content. It's a hassle trying to solve it on your own. It's overwhelming trying to get your first paying client. But you can help them get it done in less than 5 days, speed, and without the hassle of posting any content or even having a following. This is important. No one's teaching this level of depth online right now. But when you can message your offer in a way that conveys that you're helping them get what they want or solve their problem faster And with less work, more convenience attached to that, removing the inconvenience attached to it, this is going to be very, very attractive. This is going to allow you to win in business. I trust this is useful so far. I'm going to go to step number 5. Step number 5 is this: is test out your offer using a tiny challenge. Now, what is a tiny challenge? I'm going to give you a 2-minute description of what a tiny challenge is, but if you want to learn more about what a tiny challenge is, I have a video on my channel. It's about an hour long on what a tiny challenge is, exactly how to do it, and why Russell Brunson endorses it and forwarded my book. And so a tiny challenge is a marketing framework where you pick your ideal client and work with them one-on-one for 5 days, 5 calls, one-on-one. So imagine like a group challenge, but it's one-on-one with you and just one other person, 5 calls, about 30 to 45 minutes each over 5 days. It's like a one-on-one challenge, and you help them solve that problem. You build some reciprocity, you build huge amounts of trust. At the end of it, you make an offer which is this offer here, and test out the offer. This is a risk-free way of you being able to test out and validate this before going to mass market. And a tiny challenge is awesome because you don't need to worry about launching because it's only one person. You don't need to worry about what time should I do it because it's one-on-one, you can do it anytime. You don't need to worry about, oh my gosh, should I start on a Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday or 8 o'clock or 8 or 9, 9 o'clock, or 12 PM, or 2 PM. Because it's one-on-one, you can agree to all the times. Times always work. You don't have to worry about being on camera because you can just do it over the phone. It just makes starting so much easier and risk-free to test out and validate your offer through a tiny challenge. Now, step number 6 in starting your business is this: an easy way to get paid. So So this is the easiest way to collect money from your very first customer. Don't worry about setting up a company structure or an LLC or anything like that and then going to the bank and opening a bank account, because all that is friction, all that takes time, and to be fair, you actually don't need that. Now, you don't need that to get started. I'll say that again, you don't need that to get started. You eventually need all those things like a Stripe account or, you know, whatever gateway payment you decide to use But the easiest way to get paid on that first payment once you validate your offer is just PayPal. Get them to transfer it directly to your account or even your bank account. Yeah, there might be some tax implications there and all that kind of stuff, but it doesn't matter. It's your first one, and it might only be $500, it might only be $1,000, it might only be $100. It doesn't matter. But get that money and get a way for them to pay you that $100 or $500 or $1,000. And once that's done, it's validated, great. Now you can set up the proper structures, now you can set up proper accounts, now you can connect, you know, all, all the, all the accounting stuff that creates the actual business entity. But you don't need that to get started. And I see so many beginners try to set all these things up. They're trying to get a bank account, they're trying to get an ABN, they're trying to get all these numbers, and they're trying to set up Stripe, and they're going to verify and blah blah blah blah blah. And they don't start when in actual fact, most of the time, most business owners, they Their first payment, it's like, can I pay you cash? Can I just direct transfer to your bank account? Do you have PayPal? Do you have Venmo? Just do that. That will be easier. And then declare it with your taxation office that you made some income from this business and they can just work it out for you. It's not a big deal. And then after that, you can go professional with it. So here's a recap of the 6 steps. Number 1, decide on a booming industry. You've already done that. Number 2, decide on who you're going to serve. Number 3, pick one problem that you can help them with. Number 4, create an offer that sells speed or convenience or both ideally. Number 5, test it out risk-free with a tiny challenge. Number 6, have an easy way for them to pay you, and the easiest way is directly to your bank account or PayPal or Venmo or something super easy. You don't have to go fancy. Now, if you want to learn on how to get paid right now and how to get that actual first customer in more detail without posting any content, I've got a video on my channel called How to Get Your First Paying Coaching Client. Just type that in, or you can look at my page, you'll find it, and I'll show you exactly— I describe exactly how to get that first paying client without posting any content, without going on social media, without being on camera. It is gold. It's tactical step-by-step advice that you can follow to be able to test this out right away. I trust this is valuable. Keep believing, never settle.