10 Ways to Maximize Your Earnings as an Online Coach

$15 billion! That was the estimated market size of the coaching industry in 2019, with $7.5 of it being in the US market alone. Now, if basic Mathematics and the Gregorian calendar are to be believed, 2019 was way before 2021. And since then, something has happened that made us shift online drastically for obvious reasons. 

That means more avenues for you to grow your online coaching business. You could be twice as good as Tony Robbins,  Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, or a better Rambo lookalike, biceps bulging, confidence oozing, fitness trainer like Adrian Collins. But just that charisma and intellect aren't necessarily the factors that would automatically turn you into even half as successful as the gentlemen above.  

The life coaching industry in the U.S. — majorly a turf for the likes of Tony Robbins — is a $2 billion giant, with around 20,000 coaches. Such numbers are both motivating and heartbreaking at the same time. 
Now don’t get a bit demotivated by what you just read. And why would you? You have already decided to make a living out of motivating and coaching people. That means that you already have the skills, perseverance, and the hunger to turn every stone of challenge thrown at you into a sapphire of abundant opportunity.  
And that’s what we're going to help you with today. As you read further, you'll find: 

1. How to make more money as an online coach (step by step) 
2. Pitfalls to avoid in the online coaching industry  
3. How to create more value as an online coach  
4. How to grow your online coaching network 

Pitfalls to Avoid as an Online Coach

Focusing on One Medium

“Never put all your eggs in one basket”, wrote Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, a famous Spanish writer, once. How true for almost all domains of professional life; and online coaching is no different.    

To diversify, hence maximize, your sources of income, you should never fixate on one medium alone.   

Website, books, eBooks, seminars, etc., are just a few of the earning and marketing channels that you should diversify with.   

Not Thinking Your Niche Through   

As we saw above, there is more than one type of online coaching. There is personal, life, sports, fitness, and then there're professional ones, such as business, management, PR, etc.   

Think it through before you plan to earn more with any of these online coaching programs. Passion is definitely a factor, but it’s not the only one. You have to factor in competition, market size, available resources, etc.   

Ignoring the Power of Social Media   

Never make the mistake of thinking of social media as a mere "time waste". Save that talk for your motivational sessions. It’s very likely that a majority of your potential audience is waiting for you to take these channels by storm and save them from the “evil” clutches of procrastination and idleness.   

Mismanaging Brand Power   

Once you're done building your brand, your brand builds itself for you. Be mindful of what channels you work with after you've attained a certain level. You can’t put your brand at risk by promoting just anything or getting promoted by anyone for sake of covering that extra mile.   

Avoiding Networking Opportunities 

No matter how big or small your brand is today, avoiding professional seminars, get-togethers, or brunch with an ex-colleague is an opportunity wasted for trivial reasons best known to you only.   

You never know what or whom your lunch date knows, so never say never to someone just because you don’t see anything for yourself in it for the moment. 
 

And Now, 10 Ways to Maximise Your Earnings as Online Coach  

Part 1. How to Multiply Your Sources of Income  

It reads “online coaching”, but not everything that you need to do to maximize your earning as a coach has to do with online activity alone. 
Let’s first see what things you should do to lay the groundwork.  

1. Think it Through with Your Niche  

Your choice of niche would always play a big role in your success as an online coach. That will mean that you've to be objective in terms of choosing your niche. So, say, you may be good at sports, but you can’t just choose to become an online MMA coach if your waistline has grown too generous —and physically punishing — over years.

Your students — who would most likely be teenagers and hot-headed guys under 25— would have a hard time believing your “healthy workout plans” that way.   

That most certainly doesn’t mean that if you're planning to coach people online on a 100m dash then you've to have an Olympic day photo-finish on the wall behind your back. So, what factors should be considered when you're planning to choose your online coaching niche?   

Here they are:  

• What are you good at?  
• What certifications and merits do you have to show to your students?  
• Do you have the time and resources to create the content for that kind of niche?  

Answering the above questions, and versions of them, would help you to choose  from:  

• Life coaching  
• Business coaching  
• Management coaching  
• Leadership coaching  
• Sports coaching, etc.  

2. Work on Your Books 

Books are one of the best sources of passive income (given they have that kind of sale). Being an author gives you, well, authority over a domain. It shows that you went through the intellectual labor that it takes to publish literature.     

It’s also that one thing that you might find common among all other most successful online coaches —other than their lavish jets and fancy pools. A book, if written, marketed, and sold well, generally has the most long-lasting and far-reaching impact in favor of your authority as a coach, along with opening up avenues for a better source of long-term avenues. 

3. Say Yes to “Speak for Free” Opportunities

An online coach is basically a well-meaning influencer who connects with people to help them overcome challenges in their lives. That’s a noble venture. And the only thing nobler than this is letting people reap the benefits of your talents for free.    

Connect with community colleges, schools, offices, clinics, etc., and let people know that you exist, and you exist for a cause; and that too for free. 

That’s going to help you in three ways: first, a lot of people will have the opportunity to know you and hear your good thoughts; second, it’s very likely that at least some of them may choose to get enrolled in your programs; and third; you will build your public speaking skills at no added cost.   

4. Take Clients on Pro-bono Basis

That’s somewhat similar to “speaking for free”, but only more personal. But here's the good part about taking in clients pro-bono: you get to choose whom you talk to —in contrast with speaking to a big pool of audience. 

That would mean that if you think that someone has the potential to improve with your intellectual aid, then you could cherry-pick them, work with them, and once they start showing the desired levels of improvement, you could show them to the world. 

Clients that turn out to be successful using your methods make for fine testimonials.   

5. Partner up for Mutual Benefit  

You may have seen this in most American political debates. Conservatives or liberals teaming up with other conservatives or liberals to speak and debate on various political issues. 

That’s one fine strategy of introducing yourself to the fan base of other speakers. And, if that speaker is of the same inclinations, turning some, or many, of them into your fans too.   

So, if you're, say, a public speaking instructor, then you could choose to team up with, say, a leadership coach, and both of you could reach out to your separate audience bases mixed in one. 

Part 2. How to Build Your Online Coaching Network 

Now when we're done talking about how your online coaching business can use the offline world to diversify its sources of income, it’s time to get back to online networking tactics.  

So, let’s begin.  

6. Build a Membership 

"Memberships" are websites that host gated content. For those who may not know, gated content is the one that asks visitors for some kind of commitment (Sign up or monthly fee) in exchange for unrestricted access to the services/content of the website. Think of Adweek or NewYorkTimes. 

To put it simply, it’s more or less a blog, where you let visitors read a few for free, and then charge them if they wish to read more.    

The good part of having a membership is that it’s a community of like-minded people. That means that there's going to be a lot of commenting and sharing among your members, which is a good thing in terms of your content going places.   

Users of DotcomPal choose to build memberships using our services for the same reasons as given above. The other reason why they choose DotcomPal to build membership for their online coaching business is that with DotcomPal they could do it for free, that too without writing a single line of code.

7. Focus on Email Marketing 

Who would challenge the charisma and dominance of emails when it comes to online marketing? Your direct hotline to your customer, both potential and present, is way up there when it comes to driving sales for businesses.    

Other forms of marketing, such as content, display ads, social media, etc., are good for spreading awareness. But none of them could come close to email marketing when it's about closing sales. 

So it’s important that you devote as much time to building an email list as you would to any other aspect of your online coaching business.   

A lot of our clients at DotcomPal use our drag-and-drop email automation tool to focus on email marketing, which is helpful in email personalization; another important factor in driving sales.   

8. Have a Focused Landing Page Strategy  

A summary of landing page benefits first. A landing page helps you sell a particular product, collect emails, generate leads, give you relevant traffic, etc. That settled, now you need to focus on what aspects of a landing page make it different than a website or your website's home page. 

So, say, you're selling an online business leadership program that benefits executives dealing in b2b segment. That explicitly means that for time being, your targeted audience is going to be b2b business executives. Not any other types.   

Now your landing page is going to focus exclusively on the benefits that b2b executives would derive by taking up your course. So, all the images, demo videos, texts, testimonials, in short, the whole content is going to be curated to address the needs of these executives alone and no one else.    

That way you're giving a focus to both yourself and your visitors. No beating around the bush and no window shopping. And that’s one major benefit of an ideal landing page. It brings in focused customers and delivers a streamlined experience that leads them to the CTA that drives your sale. 

9. Social Media is Not Just for Fun

Almost all the leading online coaches understand and make use of social media for business purposes. But some still treat it as a digital “littering park” for some millennials and their untamed unchecked behavior. 

Anyone looking to build a brand, personal or corporate, should never rule social media out of their playbook.  

It doesn’t even take too much brainstorming when you're just starting on platforms like YouTube, Insta, Facebook, etc. Just keep these points in mind:  

• Have clear, practical, and monitorable goals in terms of content and increasing your reach.   
• Make sure that you post, if not daily, on a regular basis.   
• Be a sport when interacting with your online audience and responding to their queries and comments.  

10. Upload Your Coaching Videos for Free 

Your content is how you make your living as an online coach, so why give it for free? This is where talking to people for free, taking in clients pro-bono, and using social media all come together. 

Google any online coach that you revere. It can be Tony Robins, Marshall Goldsmith, or John Calvin Maxwell, and you'll find priceless content worth thousands of minutes for free.   

Why such a strategy? Simple. The moment people come to know about you, the first thing they would do is to Google you. From there they may take to YouTube, and then they will watch your videos and judge your content. It’s going to be your first, and the most important, impression. Make it a point that you put in everything you have and give your free videos your best shot.  

Conclusion

Being an online coach and running a successful online coaching business may or may not be the same things. You have to have a robust online as well as offline marketing strategy in place to gain and maintain your momentum.

Getting out of your comfort zone and working with different people, interacting with your social media audience, having a strong online presence are just a few of the many steps that you have to take in your journey of becoming the undisputable king of the online coaching industry. 

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