If you have a particular set of skills, whether they’re technical or gained through experience, it’s a valuable thing to pass onto others in a highly competitive world. Knowing How to make money online coaching today is one of the best ways to increase your personal finances.
As Matt’s said before: “You should never stop learning. I love to talk, especially as a keynote speaker, but I also love to listen. If I’m talking, I am only hearing things I already know, but if I’m listening, then I’m learning.”
Whether you’re planning to make it your primary career, a side hustle or the basis for your new business, the digital revolution, supercharged by the global pandemic, has made it more possible than ever to consult from anywhere in the world, which is why so many people are cashing in.
How big is the online coaching market?
Growth Market Reports says: “The global online coaching market size was valued at around US$1938.41 million in 2021 and is projected to reach around US$4567.44 million by 2030, expanding at a CAGR of 13.4%.” Meanwhile, The International Coaching Federation estimated that the coaching industry grew by $20 billion USD and increased by 54% up to 2022.
For the individual, there’s a lot of appeal in this space because there’s the option for potential low overheads to start off with (depending on how you’re operating), especially if your skill is an intellectual one and doesn’t require more equipment than a laptop, which you probably already have. It also provides flexibility for additional income. There are also multiple revenue streams that you can tap into in this space, which means the capacity for growth is almost infinite.
How much money can you make online coaching?
How much money can you make online coaching? Do online coaches make a lot of money? As with all things, this is subjective. Broadly speaking, as with any business of your own (as opposed to a salaried job), there’s no limit on what you can make with online coaching. It depends on lots of factors, including whether you get your USP right. That said, Glassdoor estimates that the average salary for an online coach in the UK is £33,002 per year, based on 4288 salaries submitted.
What type of online coaching is the most popular?
In essence you can coach in absolutely anything, but there are certain things that lend themselves to the online coaching sphere more than others. Remember though, just because a space is popular doesn’t mean it’s the best one to enter – the more people in it, the higher the competition and the smaller the available market share. The best thing is to focus on something that you know and can really add value in. That said, the most popular types of online coaching currently are:
- Career coaching
- Health and fitness coaching
- Life coaching
- Financial coaching
- Relationship coaching
- Nutritional coaching
- Parenting coaching
- Executive leadership coaching
How to make money online coaching
One of the key things to think about when you start your online coaching business is not only what you are selling, but how you’re going to sell it and is your offering scalable? This will be a defining feature in how much money you can make. You’ve only got a certain number of hours in the day, so if they’re all taken up, are you going to get other people involved? Will you sell pre-recorded courses? Is there a subscription model you can tap into? Will you create a podcast? Or maybe you will write a book? Perhaps you will do it all and more. The question is, how?
Start by thinking about the type of coaching you want to do – whether it’s one or a combination of the following ways to make money as an online coach:
- One-on-one coaching: This is a great place to start as it gets you connected with customers, you will learn what they want, how they learn, what works and what they respond to. It’s also a good way to build strong client relationships and is probably the most profitable form of coaching in that you earn the most per acquisition. However, you can only do a certain number of these sessions in a day, so there’s a cap on volume.
- Group coaching: Group sessions tend to make coaching more cost-effective for the consumer and has the benefit of introducing you to more people. This is also a great model if you’re coaching teams within companies, and is a brilliant option for a subscription approach that also offers repeat revenue.
- Online courses: Putting together online course packages opens up a lot of scope to appeal to a wider audience, lowering the customer’s transaction cost and your long-term time commitment with pre-prepared materials, but also increasing revenue through volume. It might include a combination of real-time webinars alongside pre-recorded audio, video and text content.
- Consulting services: Consulting is a great way to work with businesses and provide strategic input. It can often be done on retainer and can command a higher premium if you have the skills to back it. For example, you might be a former CEO who can offer guidance to other business founders over a set number of hours each month.
- Virtual live events: Virtual events are cheaper than in-person ones and can attract a lot of attendees who want to learn or experience.
- A hybrid model: As you grow your business, the chances are you will move towards a hybrid coaching model where you sell a combination of one-to-one coaching, group offerings and pre-recorded courses. This is a great way to maximise your profitability and continue to earn from materials that you’ve already prepared.
How can I be successful in online coaching
Think about your business model – what are you selling? How are you selling it? What makes you different? How are you going to market it? What are you charging? And so forth. Getting those fundamentals right will help people to understand who you are, what you do and what benefit you offer your customers. Then, you need to get the execution right:
- Identify your niche: First of all, decide what you’re doing and why you are best placed to do it. Do your market research to find out who else is operating in that space and what you can offer that they can’t.
- Get the right online coaching software: This will help you to manage your operations, content, marketing and customer base. The most popular tools and platforms include: Mighty Networks, Mighty Pro, Kajabi, Noomi, Satori and Thinkific.
- Get your pricing strategy right: You want to appeal to people but you also need to show that what you’re selling is worth having, and ultimately you have to be able to make money from it. If you’re focusing on one-to-one sessions but working all day, everyday won’t let you have enough to live off, then it’s not a workable solution. Set the price strategically but also to suit your service and personal goals.
- Make sure you have a secure payment system in place: Lots of people when they’re starting out as an individual trader might opt for bank transfers as their easy payment of choice. However, if you start getting into the realms of group courses and subscriptions then you will want to have a safe, secure and reliable payment system that works in different currencies, has strong fraud detection and ensures both you and the customer feels safe and secure. Good online coaching software should provide that capability.
- Explore your marketing options and create a strategy: Again, a good online coaching software may help lay the foundations for your marketing capabilities, but it’s important that you think about it as well. Develop your website, consider your SEO investment, and both your time and financial commitment to everything from online advertising to PR and promotional tools like social media, podcasts, blogs and books.
Want to start your own online coaching businesses but not sure how to go about it? We specialise in executive leadership, running businesses, entrepreneurship, and mentoring and investment, and our one-to-one private business coaching sessions could be exactly what you need to make a success of your new venture.
