The winding road that brought my client right back to her passion
Angela was an ex-PE teacher, a keen weight lifter, and brand new life coach when she reached out to me. She was looking for a business coach who would help her launch her new business and attract more clients. She already had been coaching a few clients, but her audience and niche was not clear. There are thousands of life coaches out there, so what was going to set her apart? Building a business as a new life coach is no easy feat. This is what we did while working together.
We set off on a journey to discover not only who Angela’s ideal client is, but actually, where her own joy and core strength lies. And that turned out to be way more obvious than she initially thought. This is her story.
Angela came to me with this wish list:
- A clearer marketing message
- More confidence and clarity about how to promote herself
- A better understanding of her target audience
- Knowing how to create strong content that resonates
- Booking 1-to-1 clients
- Launching a group programme
A failed first launch
Most coaches start off with high ambitions to go online, work with people globally, and maybe even do memberships and group programmes. This seems to be the most popular structure that many try and follow.
Angela was no different, and was already in the process of launching her first 6-week group programme when she started working with me. I helped her with some last-minute marketing, and she started promoting it in her Facebook group.
Nobody signed up.
She felt disheartened by that first attempt, of course, bringing up a whole host of mindset and confidence issues and common startup wobbles around ‘not being good enough’, ‘people not liking what she offers’, etc. But we analysed what had happened (bad timing during the summer holidays, too small an audience, and an unclear message), and so we went back to the drawing board. Live and learn!
Niching down and crafting a story as a new life coach
Her niche was too broad and not aligned, and her message too fuzzy.
‘Tired working mums, including teachers’ were her target. She had not defined the term ‘working’ enough (CEO’s? Hair dressers? They are both workers!), and also, her Facebook group was still filled with an audience that was mainly interested in weight loss, which is what she had helped people with in the past. It was messy.
Conclusion: her message was reaching the wrong people.
As we decided on a new strategy, we crafted a freebie download PDF to start building a new audience and an email list that was better aligned with what Angela wanted to offer. We also worked on her unique story as someone with a teaching background, who is now passionate about helping other teachers prevent burnout by teaching healthy habits. We created a client persona, so she could really imagine who she was talking to in her content, and what this woman’s pain points were (we called her ‘Jenny’ – what content would resonate with Jenny?).
After about four months of building a business as a new life coach, Angela had a wobble, and she announced that she felt her niche was too narrow with just teachers, and she wanted to try and reach a wider audience than that, to hopefully attract more clients. Building a business as a new life coach also means you have to try things out to see what works. I let her try it out. This is what happened.
Her Facebook group ended up completely silent, there was no engagement on her Instagram, and on LinkedIn there was not much happening either.
Soon enough, Angela realised that niching down to overwhelmed school teachers, was actually a good idea, especially because she had been one herself.
Choosing a niche of people not too far removed from who you are yourself can often help you market your services much better. You know their problem, you speak their language, it is easy to gain trust.
Once she had fully said YES to her defined niche and audience, everything suddenly started to flow better. Angela’s video’s were already very good, but were now just completely on-point; her message was clear, her content became stronger, but most of all; her confidence shone. Because she knew what she was talking about, and especially WHO she was talking to and what their struggle was.
We made the decision to close down the dead Facebook group, and instead focus on LinkedIn. Angela realised that booking teachers individually for coaching programmes was a challenge, but getting into schools to speak to all of them at once, was a good strategy.
And to do this, you have to get past the head teacher, and they are on LinkedIn, not on Facebook. Offering ‘wellness sessions’ and ‘mindfulness training’ to groups of educational staff, proved to be something that head teachers could get behind. Not long after, Angela got her first bookings for sessions in schools.
She may not have got as many new 1-to-1 clients as she wanted, but she did find her strengths and her flow, and got hired multiple times as a speaker within schools, becoming a authority in her field of mindfulness and coaching for teachers. Sometimes personal development takes you in unexpected directions.
The main results after our 6 months of working together:
- Increased confidence in showing up online in an authentic way, sharing her unique way of coaching
- Knowing who to serve and who to resonate with
- Understanding her core values, and knowing what she wants with her business
- An interview on British TV channel iTV
- Negotiating better contracts for her existing PE coaching business in schools
- Getting invited by a number of schools to deliver ‘Wellness and mindfulness’ sessions for teaching staff
- New practical marketing skills: email marketing, content creation, copywriting
- A brand new website, reflecting who she is, what she offers and who she helps.
Work with me
If this case study inspired you, come and speak to me. You can book a free Strategy Session in my diary here.