Are you thinking about expanding your online coaching business? Have you already spent a lot of time and energy trying to make your coaching practice successful? Well, if you’ve tried enough and still haven’t attracted new athletes, stay tuned. By the end of this article, you’ll have learned a few tried-and-true ways that will help your brand grow and prosper.
Get to know your athletes before you coach them
Getting to know the ideal athletes for you — a.k.a. your target audience — is the very first step towards helping your coaching practice start growing. Αpart from identifying the ideal athletes — who are your perfect customers — you also want to know what problems they face. And, of course, you want to know how to reach them, too.
9 ways to help your coaching business grow and thrive
Without further ado, here are our nine essential tips on how to help your coaching business grow and thrive. ✌
1. Use a daily schedule for yourself
As a coach, you already know the importance of following a daily schedule. You know, for instance, that a well-structured training schedule helps your athletes optimize their performance, with time. The same stands for you and your business endeavors. In order to grow your coaching business, you need to keep a daily schedule, filled with tasks that are specifically designed for that purpose.
2. Be consistent in your marketing efforts
Truth be told, being consistent in your marketing efforts is essential for your coaching business’s growth. What does that mean? It means that you need to create a marketing strategy and stick to it. Nonetheless, remember to reassess your strategy every quarter, to see if it still aligns with your goals and your potential customers’ needs.
Identify and promote your competitive advantage
In the competitive endurance sports market, you’re going to need to play a strong card, if you are to rise above the competition. This strong card is nothing else than your competitive advantage. So, the sooner you find out what your competitive edge is, the better. To find it, search among your strong traits; both professional, and personal. The one that shines the most — and is hard to copy — is your competitive advantage.
Organic marketing
Organic marketing can work wonders in attracting new athletes — and, thus, boosting the profitability of your coaching business — without spending a dime; just a bit of your time. To get started with organic marketing, you can use:
Paid marketing
With paid marketing, you can get results much faster — as compared to organic marketing — but you have to pay for it. That said, prepare a budget specifically for your paid media expenses and experiment with:
- Ads (Google, Social Media)
- Online Directories
- Networking and Events
Tie your efforts to your sales funnel
One of the most important things to remember, when trying to expand your coaching business, is to tie all your marketing efforts to your sales funnel. From your blog posts and free webinars, to your paid media campaigns and events, everything needs to be directed towards the desired actions within your funnel.
Lead generation with guides, tips and tricks
What does a business need, in order to grow? That’s right, new customers — there’s just no way around it. That’s why lead generation is so important. Mind you, building your lead generation is going to take time; however, offering guides, how-to tips and tricks will do the trick in boosting your lead generation; and, in building a strong business pipeline.
Live streaming or webinar
Live streaming can be a very effective medium for building brand awareness. Consequently, your coaching business could greatly benefit from offering your services to athletes — and some free advice, from time to time — through live streaming or webinars.
A Free coaching call
A free coaching call is the easiest and most affordable approach to connect with potential customers. What’s more, it’s a great way to demonstrate your expertise and convince them of your skills, as a coach. Thankfully, there are many online platforms, like Calendly, that can help you schedule your calls, quite effortlessly. Give it a go!
3. Set up a payments and invoicing system
If you don’t set up an effective payments and invoicing system, how is your online coaching business going to grow? You need such a system, to help your customers pay for your services easily and on time.
4. Invest in technology
For your coaching business to be successful, you’ll need to keep up with new trends and technologies. A holistic online coaching platform — like Endogusto — is becoming increasingly important for coaches; and athletes, alike. And, although technology can never replace good coaching, it’s probably the smartest investment you’re going to make, as an endurance coach. Your athletes are going to thank you for it.
5. Make time for new business
You shouldn’t miss any chance you get for new business — you want your coaching business to grow, right? But, don’t wait for opportunities to come to you; pull some strings, create opportunities for your business.
6. Find a coaching niche
In an effort to solve all the problems their clients face, many coaches make the mistake of offering as many services as possible. In fact, they’re offering too many services, making themselves ‘Jacks of all trades, masters of none’.
But, it’s worse than that; it also makes it very difficult for clients — and potential clients — to match them to a particular coaching niche. In other words, clients get confused. Confused clients means instability for a coaching business, and an unstable business cannot possibly grow; let alone thrive. Therefore, find a coaching niche that you’re passionate about; and focus your coaching — and your business — efforts on it.
7. Build your services to compel your clients
To attract more athletes — and expand your coaching business — you need to build your services, first. This doesn’t mean, of course, that you need to offer many services; you don’t want to become a ‘Jack of all trades’, remember? It does mean, though, to advance your services, and make them compelling. Put differently, to create services that your clients couldn’t say no to. Keep in mind, to create compelling services, you need to have extensive knowledge of your target audience — their specific needs, and challenges.
8. Set up policies and procedures
All businesses need policies and procedures to guide their operations. To explain why you need to do this, with policies, you describe what your athletes should expect from you; and, with procedures, you direct them towards complying with these policies. This is important for onboarding new athletes, as well; not just your current ones. Setting up policies and procedures, not only makes your coaching business consistent, but also helps maintain the quality of your services.
9. Use strength training in your training programs
Naturally, many endurance coaches focus on helping their athletes build endurance; often, putting resistance workouts on the back-burner. Even worse, some are omitting them completely. 🤷♀️
But, you know better than to make this error, dear coach. Including strength training in your athletes’ plans will help them build muscle. They need muscle to endure — and excel — in demanding races; and, also, avoid injuries.
And, you should know, it’s super easy to integrate strength training into your athletes’ plans, with our platform, Endogusto! Now, there’s no reason not to do it .😉
Scale operations and get an assistant coach
When you reach a point where you just can’t cope with your current customer load, consider hiring an assistant coach. Why bother? Because, on one hand, it will help you keep the quality of your services high. On the other hand, it will allow you to expand your customer base — which will eventually help scale operations; and help your coaching business thrive.
TL;DR — Start growing your online coaching business
Nobody will scale your coaching business for you; its growth and success lay entirely in your hands. So, how can you help your practice expand and prosper? You can begin by identifying your ideal customers, and getting to know them — and their needs — very well. Then, start sprinkling some marketing magic dust, imbued with your unique selling proposition. Moreover, find a coaching niche that looks promising — one that you feel passionate about — and gather your focus in that field.
However, if you really want to stand a chance against your competition — and, why not, the market’s biggest names — make sure you have technology and science on your side. Using this ‘sci-tech’ approach, you will be able to outpace the competition, and scale up faster than you’d expect.
So, are you ready to face up to the challenge? Endogusto will equip you with all the science and technology you’re going to need, to transform the growing pains of your coaching business into a growing success! 🌟