How To Start a Coaching Business From Scratch

Here’s everything you need to know to become an online coach and build a profitable and sustainable coaching business.

Whether you have worked as a coach already or are looking to dive right into it, online coaching offers up plenty of benefits for both you and your potential future clients. The best part is? No fancy degree or deep knowledge of marketing needed! You can launch an online coaching business quite easily, and within any niche. 

In this guide we cover everything you need to know to coach online, from writing a business plan to growing your audience. 

Know exactly what you’re looking for? Jump to it here! 

As Simon Sinek said in his seminal book Start With Why (and his popular TED talk), “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” 

Before we start: Do you meet the requirements to be an online coach?

This is a bit of a trick question, because there are not many requirements to become an online coach. 

Knowledge of your ideal customer profile (ICP)

While a degree in coaching may be helpful, it’s not needed. Though, you will need to have a deep understanding of who your target audience is. Identify:

• Do you know what this person struggles with?
• Do you know the current solutions that they’ve tried & why it doesn’t work?
• Do you know where they go for sources of information & why they go there?
• How much is this person willing to pay for materials?
• What is the preferred learning style for this group? 
• What level of knowledge are they starting out with?
• Have you talked to this person before? How frequently? (Hint: At least 75% of your coaching clients should fall into this category)

A willingness to continuously improve

The ultimate peak of offering an online coaching service is that you can update your messaging and materials anytime, anywhere. However, it also demands that you be available to address new needs and adapt your materials as frequently as you are receiving new insights from your ICP.

This is not to say that you need to change your website or course materials every day. But it is good to budget a few hours every month to keep your materials up to date.

The technology pieces

Fortunately, there are not a lot of technology requirements. They are nearly the same tools you’re likely using to read this article today:

• A laptop or computer that has video conferencing capabilities (ie. microphone, speaker, video camera)
• Internet connection

You can go a step further by having course management software, website builders, or fancier hardware (like a keyboard or second monitor). 

The legal details

Any responsible business owner needs to do their due diligence when it comes to learning about the legal and financial implications of their operations. Make sure to check requirements for your geographic location (city, state, and country), as well as industry regulations. 

This is also a good time to decide what budget you want to use to fund your business. 

It’s a good practice to ask yourself first: Why do you want to offer coaching services online? 

While everyone is going to have their own unique reason, there are also plenty of universal benefits to running coaching programs on the web. 

1. It’s profitable

Virtual programs allow you to spend more time with your clients rather than commuting around, meaning you can fit more clients into your schedule. Every session equals more revenue. 

You’ll also reduce carbon emissions from driving into an office or to a client’s home, meaning you’ll also improve your sustainability scores.

2. It’s more scalable than in-person coaching

Group coaching classes become accessible and easy to launch, so you can accommodate more people at more times. You’ll also leverage online coaching platforms that automate many of your everyday tasks like meeting scheduling and content distribution to save even more time. 

3. You can coach clients from around the world

Delivering coaching sessions online allows you to tap into markets with the highest levels of consumer spending internationally, outside of just your local community. The countries with the highest number of learners include the United States, India, Mexico, Brazil, and China.

With an online format, you can leverage AI tools to translate documents or calls and make accessing those far-flung regions even easier. 

4. It can generate passive income

You can turn your expertise into on-demand coaching programs that thousands of people can take and pay for on their own time. You can do the work once, record yourself while doing it, and then earn passive income by selling it as a course for as long as the course is active online. 

5. The cost to acquire new leads is significantly less

Many coaches rely on paid ads and in-person events to generate a high volume of leads quickly. Or, they route for word of mouth referral services that are slow to generate leads. 

With online coaching, you can use workflows that automate inbound & outbound marketing to generate leads more effectively. You’ll have better access to data analytics to see which efforts are producing high results, so your marketing spend becomes more efficient. 

If you want to take your online coaching business to the next level, you can also build an online community at the same time. You’ll earn leads while also giving more resources to your existing book of business. 

6. The demand for online coaching services is high

As the nature of our work changes faster than ever before, education and learning online have become increasingly important. This means the demand for coaching has grown too. Online coaching is expected to be an $11.7 billion market by 2032!

7. You can leverage thought leadership for skeptical buyers

With in-person offerings, you’re limited to the brochures at the front desk. And those only appeal to people that have actually stepped foot in your office. Taking a virtual approach gives you more educational opportunities to show off your abilities via socials or websites. This helps build trust with otherwise skeptical leads. 

How to start an online coaching business: 9 steps

Regardless of what type of coach you want to be, you can follow the same eight steps to create a successful online coaching business. The key here is to plan in advance and have a strategy mapped out before you dive into execution. 

1. Work on your coaching skills 

All online coaches, from business coaches to health coaches, essentially use the same set of coaching tools and rely on their core competencies to set them apart. Janelle Scott, P. Eng shared that there are 6 elements that combine together to create “coaching excellence” including:

1. Foundational knowledge and training
2. Deliberate, focused practice
3. Natural empathy and emotional intelligence
4. Lived experiences and overcome challenges
5. Continuous learning and adaptation
6. Regular reflection and refinement

Start by assessing your area of expertise and your unique specialization (e.g. online fitness coach vs. online bodybuilding coach). Ask yourself how your skillset can be improved. 

Soft skills are an important part of emotional intelligence, reflection, and growth. Here are a few that you should prioritize practicing for your coaching sessions:

• Being empathetic
• Knowing how to listen 
• Staying calm in stressful situations
• Recognizing your biases
• Offering emotional support
• Seeing client’s potential
• Inspiring confidence

For more information, read our previous article on 6 proven methods for improving your coaching skills. 

2. Draft up a business plan

Even if coaching is not your primary occupation and you’re just working on it part-time in the evenings, you still need to have a business plan. Otherwise, how will you know what you’re working towards? How will you measure your progress? 

First, circle back to your ICP. Remember, this was one of your requirements before jumping into coaching! Jump to the top if you need to take a look at this again. 

Second, research your niche. Figure out:

• Who are your competitors? What other online coaches are in your geographical area or industry? Remember that if you’re expanding globally, they might be too. 
• How are you different from them? What services, communities, and resources do they offer? What is their speciality? How do they price their offerings?

Then tie the two together to learn about why a potential coaching client would go to the competitor versus going to you. And don’t forget, it’s okay to let the competition win sometimes. Not every coaching client is a good fit for you, so you’ll have to really focus on which ones you’ll want to work with and why.

You can use this coaching business model canvas to map your unique value proposition (UVP), the way you make money, and how you deliver your coaching services.

Jennifer Kem, brand building expert and CEO of the Master Brand institute, recommends getting as specific as possible on the type of people your area of expertise serves.

“The more specific you are, the easier it is to identify what key areas you need to communicate to attract clients. An online fitness coach who specializes in helping people who were injured and are getting their health back on track is very different from someone who helps elite, amateur-level athletes increase their dynamic range of motion. Both are fitness coaches which means they cover the same concepts however in practice, these are two very different things.”

– Jennifer Kem, CEO of Master Brand Institute

3. Plan your coaching program

Once you have a business plan, you should create a coaching framework that will outline all the processes you will follow in your coaching practice. 

To maximize your profits, you should consider two coaching styles for your framework:

Model	Pros	Cons
One-to-many	Can earn testimonials & referrals faster Easier to batch produce content that works for everyone	Harder to spot learners who are struggling with a session
Exclusive, one-to-one, “executive” coaching sessions	Ability to price higher, especially if targeting corporate training opportunities	Requires more time commitment to create custom pathways for each client

 

Depending on which coaching style you opt for, you’ll need to build out some templates for learning pathways. These are the basics of how you will help coach your client through their particular challenge. 

A big part of this step is deciding on content formats, like:

• Video
• Downloadable PDFs
• Audio recordings
• Live video sessions
• Songs
• Workbooks

Tip: Don’t rush into pouring all of your knowledge into your first online course (or video). It’s more efficient and effective to deliver your coaching in smaller chunks. So instead of a two-hour masterclass, try multiple 10-minute segments.

4. Plan for customer loyalty

With your one-to-one coaching, it’s good to offer one or two trial sessions, and then require a minimum commitment (e.g. six or 12 coaching sessions) to lock in revenue and reduce churn. 

A best practice that Jennifer Kem recommends is to sell the outline of your program then to build it out as you work with people. She believes if you do this with ten different clients, it’ll give you a thorough understanding of what clients need in order to find success.

After you’ve done this exercise, if you feel like the ICP that you planned for at the start isn’t going to make sense for the future of your business, it’s okay to switch it up! Go back to your coaching program and rebuild it to something that makes more sense for your new ICP.

5. Build your brand

There’s nothing more important at the beginning of your online coaching career than standing out. You need people to talk about you, and you have to give them a reason to do so. 

Your market research will help you formulate a brand that appeals to the preferences of your target audience. But it should also display your personality and unique coaching approach. This helps leads and clients feel compelled more to your brand than any other because of specific connection points, like your history in the field or focus on client care, for example.

With more information on the demand side of your business, you can position yourself and start building your brand in a way that speaks directly to your audience. Make sure that your brand is consistent and expressed the same way across all platforms, including your website, online courses, social media, and other marketing channels.

Your personal brand = consistency × standing out. 

6. Set up your online coaching service

If you find yourself manually copying and pasting things and spending time on repetitive admin tasks, you probably just haven’t found the right tools to simplify your workflow.

Here are a few types and examples of online tools used by online life coaches, business coaches, and personal training coaches.

Tools	Why you need it	Examples
Video conferencing platform	Syncs with your calendar and chats Makes conversation accessible from anywhere Allows you to record conversations Increases virtual engagement on one-to-many sessions	Google Meet Zoom
Online coaching or learner management platform	Build content for your learners Measure progress Manage communities of learners	Thinkific
Marketing channels	Targeting new potential coaching clients Tracking data on campaign effectiveness	Buffer Hootsuite
Mass communication channels	Staying in touch with your learners at scale Nurturing cold or warm leads with thought leadership content	Mailchimp Hubspot

 

7. Price your coaching program

Income is the main driver of your business. 

When it comes to pricing your coaching sessions, do some research to find out the average rate in your niche. Then pick a number that’s 10–20% higher than that and use it as a benchmark for your pricing. If you find that the number you landed on is too high or too low, you can adjust your pricing strategy as you go.

Remember that you don’t charge customers to cover your costs — you charge customers based on the value you provide to them. 

8. Find customers

Looking for quality clients is something you’ll continue to do for as long as you have your coaching practice. To get a steady flow of clients, you should think of your marketing in terms of a conversion funnel. 

Funnel stage	Why it matters	What to do
Top funnel	Build awareness of the problem that your ICP is facing	Social media Online advertisements Podcast appearances Conference presentations
Middle funnel	Offer potential solutions to the problem that your ICP is facing and introduce them to online coaching as an option	Email newsletters Lead magnets (PDFs) Paid media
Bottom funnel	Show your ICP that you are the best online coaching support option for them	Free trials of your course Sample workbooks Community testimonials Referral networks

 

Always, always maintain reporting and optimization strategies to make the most value out of every campaign. Don’t be afraid to pivot early when something isn’t working.

Not enough new social media followers? Try appearing as a guest on someone’s podcast. 

Not enough email subscribers? Write a new guide to share in exchange for email collection. 

9. Collect feedback and improve

No process comes full circle if you don’t collect feedback to improve it. 

First, you need a community of peers who you can discuss ongoing issues with and help each other resolve them. Try looking on LinkedIn, Reddit, Facebook Groups, or industry-specific slack channels. 

Second, set up a feedback loop with your clients. Whether they take your courses or meet with you one-on-one, you can send them short and anonymous surveys to rate the quality of your content and suggest ideas for improvement. 

Start your own online community if you have to. Host peers, mentees, or anyone who may be a positive contributor.

Make sure to set aside some time each week to review new feedback coming in and figure out how you can apply it to your work moving forward. 

How Jo Kelly launched her online coaching business 

Jo Kelly is an experiential coach who has so far mentored over 8,000 actors since 2016, all through online coaching delivery. 

How did she do it? Here’s her 8-step method:

1. She did her research on what made other actors feel blocked towards reaching their peak performance.
2. She started leveraging somatic tools and practices in private, in-person coaching classes (before online coaching was widely available) and later expanded the conversations to digital channels like Facebook Groups. 
3. She launched an online website that allowed new actors to find her.
4. Through feedback from current clients, she was able to build out multiple other learning journeys that catered to the different challenges her clients were facing. 
5. She refined her target audience as she grew her digital following. 
6. Customer feedback became the driver for her growth, which she leveraged on multiple social channels, her website, and her course content. 
7. She offered a pricing model that accommodated the fluctuating income that actors tend to have. 
8. She stayed committed to her niche through all of it, building with her heart and leading with integrity.

Starting an online coaching business: Frequently asked questions

Leveraging the information above, you can quickly start a real online coaching business. However, you might still have a few questions. Here are the answers to the most popular ones. 

1. How much money do online coaches make?

Since online coaching is a service that cuts through multiple industries, the compensation varies a lot. 

For example, an online bodybuilding coach might not spend as much time with you as they would in-person at the gym, so they might make less for actual coaching sessions but make up for it on custom programming.

Online business coaches, especially executive coaches, on the other hand, tend to make much more — on average, hundreds of dollars an hour. That’s because their coaching is tied to high-value transactions in the business as a direct result of your lessons. 

Your rates would also depend on where most of your target audience lives. In the US, you can expect to charge at least $50 an hour. Multiply that by the number of hours worked, and you have your gross income. 

2. How do I price my online coaching program?

The way you price your coaching services should correlate with the amount of value you provide (as perceived by the client). If you’re not sure about how to value your work yet, start with the industry average rate and add anywhere from 10-20% to test the waters.

3. How do I get more coaching clients?

By far, the best way to get new clients is through referrals from your existing happy clients or alumni. If you don’t get referrals organically, reach out and ask for them. Ask to be introduced to anyone who might benefit from your services — then sell your services to them! 

If you’re brand new, don’t be shy of testing some digital marketing strategies. Scroll up to step #7 for some ideas.

4. How can I generate passive income as an online coach?

You only have so many hours in a day for one-to-one coaching. Eventually, you want to get to a point where most of your revenue comes from services that you don’t have to actively participate in. 

5. Should I offer group coaching or one-on-one coaching?

This decision is entirely up to your preferences and what you see is generating the highest demand from your target audience. Start with one or the other, and add the second alternative after you have strong foundations with the first method. Keep in mind that your pricing and session structure should differ for each, with group sessions being more affordable and focused on teamwork activities. 

6. What is the first step to get started as an online coach? 

Online courses are a perfect way to build passive income from your coaching practice. Create your own online course using Thinkific today and see how easy it is to turn your knowledge into profit. Starting with Thinkific is fast and free. So challenge yourself to do something new that will pay off handsomely in the long run.

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This blog was originally published in June 2023, it’s since been updated in January 2025 to include the newest information.