14 5 Tips to Start An Online Coaching Business In Your Spare Time
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[00:00:00] I have talked a lot about writing your first book on this channel and podcast but people keep asking me how have I started a coaching business in my spare time? Could they also do it? So I thought I'd give you five tips on what you need to do to start an online coaching or mentoring business from scratch and also why you might want [00:00:15] to.
We've got to start with first. [00:00:30] Why? Why would you want to? I think there's a few reasons. One, if you've got a passion for something, and maybe it doesn't fit into the remit of your actual job, and you want to help people with it whilst making a bit of income on the side, there is no better way to do it than with an online coaching business.
My kids are older now. [00:00:45] I had three or four hours a week to spare. I get bored easily. So I settled to publish some books. A friend asked, how I'd done it and wanted to publish his book and didn't want to pay crazy money to a publisher. So I helped him and he said, you should charge people with this.
So I thought, well, why not? I [00:01:00] might as well. So I started an author coaching business started as a bit of a hobby of a side gig is grown into something a little more. I've always loved helping people do stuff. So it's perfect fit for me. The reality is there are loads of ways to make money online. I have tried a lot of them [00:01:15] dropshipping eBay, even designing t shirts, which you will never see, by the way.
But most of them are soul destroying. And you have to be in it to just make money. And they take more and more time. And there's loads of gurus who will show you their method. You know, they've you've seen them with their rented Ferraris and fake [00:01:30] tans. But if if making money isn't your main driver, or your only driver, then coaching or really mentoring people is what it is.
There's some purists out there who you only can call coaching certain things. But anyway, mentoring people, how to [00:01:45] do things is a great way to provide income, but also help others. So if that's your passion, it's a brilliant way. I give loads away for free on YouTube on my blog, but anyone who wants more help, actual coaching or mentoring, that's a way I can make a little money for my family, my spare time and [00:02:00] help people learn loads as well myself on the journey.
And the nice thing is you can scale it to the time that you have. I've got really fixed times I can work on it each week, three or four hours is all you need really. And I could probably scale it to a full time business, but I don't want [00:02:15] to I've got more than full time job already. I've got other things I want to do with my life.
So you can scale it to fit the time that you have. That's the first reason. The second why might be if you want to increase income from what you already do, but you're running out of time. Basically, you're caught in the trap of [00:02:30] exchanging time for money. The only way to earn more money is to give more time to it.
So if you're a coach or a mentor already who's at capacity with one to one clients, you've got to make a plan before you burn out. You can take on other coaches to help you but then you're managing staff. Do you really want to do that? That's the that's [00:02:45] the choice before you
so moving to an online coaching or mentoring model where you can grow a program that helps groups of people and especially if some of that content can be pre recorded, it is an amazing way to scale your income and use less time. The third reason is if you're anticipating a career change.
I'm coaching [00:03:00] a lady who's done with her current career. She's done it for a few years. She's burning out. She needs a change. She's got a lot of skills that she can use. So we're going to work together to build her a scalable coaching or mentoring business where she can serve individuals and groups of people and make it increasingly [00:03:15] passive over time.
It means she can keep doing what she loves to do, but just in a different way without the burnout. Anyway, there's lots of other reasons why you might want to do it, but you get the idea. So the question you're really burning with is, well, how do you do it? And I promise you five tips. Stay tuned [00:03:30] for number five is a game changer.
I'm not just saying that to keep you listening to the end. Well, of course, I'm saying it to keep you listening to the end, but it is good one. Anyway, let's get started. So tip number one is define your niche. First things first, you've got to define your niche. What's a niche? A niche is jargon, [00:03:45] basically, that means the area that you want to focus on, which is linked to the people that you want to help.
It's crucial because trying to be everything to everyone will only dilute your message and make it harder for people to know what you're actually on about. If you try and help everyone with everything, you [00:04:00] basically help no one with people. anything. Who do you want to help? And how do you want to help them?
That's the nub of it. And it sounds simple. But honestly, it is the hardest part. And it takes a while to work it out. I've got a whole process that I walk people through. But the simple version is to [00:04:15] start with what do you know, What do you love? What are you good at? Particularly think about things that come easy to you, but seem hard for others.
And start talking to people. Start asking them what their biggest struggle is with that subject. What their hope is. What their dream is. For me, when I thought about the idea of coaching would be [00:04:30] authors, I quickly met lots of people who wanted to write a book. But it was as I talked with them, I realized why their books weren't getting written.
And that helped me to formulate a plan of how I could help them. So who do you want to help? What are they struggling with? What can you help them [00:04:45] achieve? How long is it going to take? That's the backbone of your niche. It wants to be something that you love talking about and could talk about for the next three years or so.
So that's the first thing, define your niche. Number two is start talking to people and posting online about the niche that you're interested in. [00:05:00] You don't have to post on every platform and talk to every person. Remember, this has got to be fun. This has got to be enjoyable. Pick one platform where perhaps you hang out already.
Maybe you're on Instagram or you're on Facebook. , and particularly where people are already who might need your help and they're already hanging out there [00:05:15] and ask questions, start conversations, join Facebook groups about the subject, start helping people on there and talk to people one to one that you meet.
They might not even be interested, but I bet they know someone who might be. And as part of this step, if you really want to commit, then [00:05:30] start to use a more permanent form of online media. Basically there's three ways. Start a blog, build a podcast, start a YouTube channel. They are increasing order of difficulty and complexity and time commitment.
I know, but a blog is pretty easy. Anyone could do that podcast [00:05:45] fairly straightforward, just to record the audio. You do tell what takes a little bit more. I do both YouTube and podcast because you can do it in one hit. And then I can turn the text from that into a blog. There's ways of scaling it. But the advantage of these forms over more instant forms like Twitter and [00:06:00] Instagram is that they're permanent and searchable.
Basically your Instagram post has got a shelf life, I think, of about 24 hours. Your Twitter post, I think it's less than an hour these days, but blogs and YouTube are searchable forever. Podcasts, less so, but you can combine a podcast with a [00:06:15] blog pretty easily. Um, so the second tip is once you've defined your niche is start to talk about it.
And the third tip is to help someone for free. Some people say never to do this, and I agree, you've got to be careful to help the right person.
You don't want to [00:06:30] be working on someone's problem harder than they are. But if you find someone who's motivated and you'd like to help them, then help them. You'll gain a ton of experience. You'll feel good about helping them. And you won't feel bad if you make mistakes because you're not charging them anything.
It's a real way to get over imposter syndrome. [00:06:45] You'll work out where they get stuck . You'll work out how to help them overcome things. Take loads of notes. It's really, really a helpful process. Obviously this is less relevant if you've already been helping people as part of your job.
In that case, you can charge either at full rate or reduced rate. Um, [00:07:00] because you've moved to an online model, perhaps, that you've not done before. So that's , tip number three, start helping someone for free. And tip four, is write down your process. So, you've helped at least one person, now is the time to create a process.
Basically, a roadmap. [00:07:15] And the best way I've found to do this is to take a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle, and write escape from on the left, and escape to on the right. Then, on the left, you'll create a list of all the things you're going to help your person escape from.
So, for example, in, uh, my business coaching, [00:07:30] I'd write, you know, I'm helping them escape from running out of time, or burning out, or not knowing how to escape, or drowning on all the different options, or having no options, or feeling trapped. So, what are you helping them to escape from? On the right, you're writing down all the things you're going to help people to escape [00:07:45] to.
For me, it's like, uh, creating their first coaching program online, creating increasingly passive income, creating the ability to help more people, having fun, developing something new, feeling no longer stuck. You get the idea. And then, then finally, take a second piece of paper [00:08:00] and on that piece of paper at the top, write escape.
, two, and at the bottom, write escape from, and then draw a wiggly line between the two, and, and write down the milestones that people will go through, basically the journey that they will go , through, on their escape from, and to [00:08:15] their escape to,
that's a rough idea. You get the idea. Work on this and you should be able to boil it down to a five or six step process that forms a backbone of how you help people to get where they want to go. You know, having a clear process is so much more appealing to people rather than signing up some [00:08:30] generic coaching that they don't know how long it's going to take or what the milestones are on the journey.
Having a clear process really will help you. We'll help them. And then the last tip is to tip five, is to build a landing page and an email list. A landing page is where you [00:08:45] can ask people to give you their email if they want to hear more.
Basically, you wanna start collecting people's emails so that you can build a bit of a following of people who are interested in the same things as you. If you've got a blog or a a, a podcast or a YouTube channel, it's an easy way to. To send them [00:09:00] back to new content. Otherwise, I might not stumble across it again.
, there's loads of platforms you can use. I use a platform called Kajabi because it's so much more than the email provider. It can host your website, it can host your blog, your podcast, your courses. So if you want to build this, it's a great [00:09:15] platform. It saves me so much time, but there's loads of others.
If you just want the email and a landing page, ConvertKit is probably my favorite. , but anyway, this is so key because once you've got someone's email, it's easy to stay in touch with them as your business develops. If you're just relying on social media, you just don't know if [00:09:30] they're gonna, if they're gonna see it.
I think the stats are if you send out 2, 000 email messages, about 40 percent of people will open them typically. Um, whereas if you send a message on social media to 2, 000 followers, you've got about, you know, 100, 150 people who are going to see it. So email is so [00:09:45] much more powerful than than social media.
Anyway, there's loads more to it, of course, but that should get you going five tips to start your online coaching business from scratch and why you should think about doing it.
I hope it was helpful. I would love to hear from you in the comments, which tip was the most helpful [00:10:00] for you. And if you want to chat about it more, then you can contact me at therawlleader. com forward slash coaching. Thanks so much for watching or listening. I'll connect with you soon. I'll [00:10:15] see you in the next video. Bye!
