Struggling to get clients and make money in your coaching business? Trust me, despite what the online marketing gurus are telling you, you’re not alone.

In this post I’m going to share some of the reasons why your coaching business isn’t working – and what you can do about it.

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How are you defining what’s working / what’s not working?

Before we dive into the other points I think it’s really important to identify how you are defining what’s working and what’s not.

There’s degrees of success and what’s helpful is to measure what is and isn’t working.

Many of us are sold a dream of a coaching business that is making multiple six figures and it might be that it is simply not realistic for where you’re at right now in terms of your business model. So if you’re labelling your business as ‘not working’ because you’re not making a tonne of cash, then I’d re think that.

For the purposes of this post I’m really thinking about those coaches struggling to get any clients and make their business financially viable at the most basic level.

Ok, so what reasons might your coaching business be struggling?

Not connecting with enough of the right people, often enough

For me, the foundations of a coaching business that works is being able to get in front of, and build relationships with, the people who need and value what it is you offer – over and over again.

If you’re not doing this then you can struggle. Not everyone who comes across your business is going to work with you as a client so sometimes it’s simply a numbers / volume thing and that’s where time can come into this too.

So looking at what strategies you’re using to connect with more people here really is key.

Where you’re focusing your time

If you’re not focusing your time on the tasks and activities that are actually going to move the needle in your business then it’s going to be hard to gain traction.

Something I see coaches do when they are struggling to get clients is create an online course thinking that because it’s cheaper it will be easier to sell and will provide some passive income.

Apart from a very specific small digital product, unless you are booked out with clients, spending time creating a course is not going to benefit your business and the time you spend on it would be much better off being spent on marketing and building connections and relationships with people.

I totally get why it’s an attractive idea, but trust me, you’ll need a massive community of people to make a course work as well financially as a well thought out coaching programme.

Some of this is because the things that actually grow our businesses – connecting with people and showing up over and over, can feel scary, vulnerable and out of our comfort zone so we naturally gravitate towards the things that we think will work that feel ‘safe’ but actually aren’t going to move us forward.

Mindset

This is a pretty broad one and I’m almost reluctant to include it because coaches telling their clients that their mindset is why they aren’t getting results is a total bull shit excuse in my books.

However, mindset impacts everything and if you deeply believe that your coaching business isn’t going to work, if you can’t see why people would pay you for what you do, if you don’t value your work – all of this is going to make things very hard when it comes to showing up and getting clients.

Spending some time working on your mindset and even just becoming more aware of those limiting / protective beliefs is a great starting point.

Messaging mismatch

Sometimes not quite nailing your messaging can be having an impact on booking clients. If you don’t have a compelling message – and connected to this, if you’re not showing up as yourself, these things can have an impact.

So maybe you’re holding back bits of yourself because you think you need to be a certain edited version of yourself to be a successful coach.

I tend to feel like messaging / positioning and being your truest self are all elements of the same thing – and without these things in place I tend to think it’s much harder to create that deep connection and resonance with potential clients that makes them want to book with you.

Structural issues you have no control over

Ok, this is a super important one. All of us are going to face structural issues that we have no control over whatsoever that will impact our ability to make our coaching business a success.

I don’t believe it’s a negative thing to recognise this, we all have a different set of circumstances, access to resources and privileges and these things will absolutely impact on our business success. This is why it’s so important not to compare your journey to anyone else’s.

Time

Some things just take time and it’s as simple as that!

Yes, there’s things you can do to speed up the process (working with a coach or mentor should help you do this) but lots of elements of building a business will take time.

It takes time to grow a community and audience, it takes time to figure out exactly what works for your particular people and your specific niche, it just takes time and that’s ok!

In fact you can be doing all of the ‘right things’ and it can still take time to get results.

Lack of consistency

I really wish I could tell you that you don’t need to be consistent but If you’re not showing up in your business with some consistency it can make it hard to get results.

For many of us we think of consistency in business as being consistent on Instagram or Facebook or whatever, but really consistency is about showing up and doing something as often as possible.

Inconsistency get’s inconsistent results basically!

Next steps

I could list out many, many more things that could be contributing to your business not working – I haven’t even delved into copywriting, business models, pricing and so many other things!

I see my job as a business mentor to help you figure out what’s not working in your specific business so you can get results faster.

If that sounds good to you, a great starting point would be to join me for my new free workshop Aligned Marketing and Client Attraction Workshop.

Join me live at 1pm on Wednesday 21st September (or sign up and get the replay if you can’t make it live)

You’ll learn:

• Where you should focus your time and energy to get more clients NOW
• How to market your business so you’re future proofing your flow of clients
• Mistakes most coaches make when it comes to client attraction and marketing their business and how to avoid them
• How to actually enjoy marketing your business so you connect with more potential clients and get in front of new people
• How to market your business without social media (if that’s what you want to do)

Click here to sign up and join us!

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