How to Boost Your Coaching Income – PART 2

This week I will continue with Part 2 of the series, How to Boost Your Coaching Income. Most people think of coaching as a one-to-one conversation to help one or both of the individuals make better progress towards their goals.  This is one way to deliver coaching and earn an income, but as we discovered last week, there are many more ways.

It is recommended that coaches develop multiple ways of delivering coaching, also referred to as multiple streams of income, to create more stability and sustainability for their coaching practice, business or ministry.

Here are more great ways to boost your coaching income:​

Books- (physical or digital)

If you enjoy writing and are fairly good at it, writing and selling your books on topics in which you are an expert, can be a great income stream. There is more to writing books than simply writing them. You will need someone to create your book cover artwork as well as any illustrations you may want to use inside. You will need an editor who can make sure that your eyes are dotted and T's are crossed. They also must understand proper grammar and be willing to make changes while still maintaining your voice.

Years ago, it was necessary to have a publisher. Fortunately, that is not the case today with all of the options we have on the Internet. Self-publishing has become very popular because of the ability to maintain artistic control over your content as well as greater opportunities to monetize your work. Where working with a publisher might pay you only $.50 in royalties per book you sell, self-publishing will allow you to earn a majority or even all of the profit. There is a lot to know before beginning but once you have this information, you can replicate it over and over again. I go into much more depth on this topic in the Spirit Led Marketing course.

Seminars and conferences

Putting on your own events takes some know-how. There are many ways to monetize events and charging per seat is the least among them. The more you charge to attend, the smaller your group will likely be. However, smaller groups provide greater intimacy and allow for higher levels of personal attention. Try to keep the topic of the event narrow enough that likely attendees will be clear on what you plan to deliver.

​Some of the other ways to monetize events are selling products or services from the back of the room, fees from other speakers who want more credibility by speaking in front of and selling to your group as well as fees from vendors and registrations for follow-up events.

Speaking

If you enjoy being in front of others, speaking may be a good choice for you. Statistics have shown that people fear of public speaking even more than they fear death. But those who enjoy it and thrive in that environment have awesome opportunities.  I enjoy speaking and teaching in front of groups which is why creating our own events have worked well for us.

As a speaker, it is important that you create talks on specific topics that will be of interest to your audience.

You will need a media kit with head shot and speaker bio. When you start out, although helpful, it is not necessary to hire a publicist. You can do much of this yourself once you have your media kit ready.

Do some research on events and conferences that are likely to cater to your ideal audience. Make sure you are not in direct competition with the event host. Then, make contact with the event organizer and offer your services as a speaker. Tell how their audience will benefit from your presentation. When you first start out, it's fine to speak for free so that you can get practice speaking in front of your ideal audience. Make sure you have permission from your host if you plan to sell from stage. If this is not allowed, ask if they will permit you to offer a free gift such as a report where you can collect email addresses to send the report and add them to your email list. It is not unusual to get approached afterwords about the services you offer.

Membership Website

If you are web-savvy, why not create a membership website where you can interact with members and share your knowledge while charging per month.  The nice thing about these systems is you don't have to have all the content in place before opening your membership program.  You can get one or two modules online and create new ones each month.

​Another type of membership program is to present monthly or weekly training calls.  After each call, post the recording to the membership website to create content.  Add a worksheet if appropriate.

Here is a way to make these particularly valuable.  Some of the major players in the internet marketing training space tell about inviting questions from the members prior to each call so that they can be addressed live on the call.  Even if the member can't attend the call, they can hear their question answered in the recording.​

Digital Products: audio, video, text

Create an online digital product be it an ebook, audio or video series that solves your client's problem. It is critical to be highly specific with the solution you provide.

Creating courses is not for the faint of heart.  It takes more work than you could ever imagine.  

All of those I have taught my system to, have told me they could not believe the time and volume of work to do it well.  They each told me they will could never dispute high course fees because they now understand that we as course creators earn EVERY penny we charge (and then some).

In addition to course content, you need technical expertise that you can hire from freelance websites such as www.dice.com, www.flexjobs.com, www.upwork.com or others, if you aren't capable of creating the systems needed. Knowing what to do is only part of what you need. You must also know exactly how to do it, to be successful.

This is training that I provide in our master coach MCLC course, where I work with you one-to-one for 6 months to create your signature product/system. Once you know how this works, you will be able to use this system over and over again to create multiple income streams. The MCLC course has a pre-requisite to have successfully completed one of our Certified Christian Life Coach certification courses.

There are many more ways to create coaching income but above are some of the best income-producers while allowing you to serve in a greater way.  

The interesting thing is that coaching products and services do not sell better if they are cheaper.  This is one industry where greater value is placed on higher dollar products.  This may seem counter-intuitive, but with so much information online for free these days, customers respect those who confidently charge the correct value for their product or service.​  

Finally, here is one last tip.  I have seen some great talents build a coaching product or service but never launch it because they feared being overwhelmed by clients.  Trust me, just building it does not mean anyone will necessarily show up.  You need to get in front of lots of people and share your message. The more the better.  2 to 5% conversion of cold traffic (those who don't yet know you) is not bad. For websites, you need quality traffic and lots of it.  Search engine marketing is key.  But that topic is for another day and another message.​

You can't market your products or services too much.  Just when they are beginning to bore you, others are starting to get it.​  So go after your dream and don't give up.  The world needs that special gift only you can offer.  God has created you to deliver the message in your own way.  If you know you are called, go after it and don't take "no" for an answer.