Make It Visible
You’re full of amazing coaching skills, ideas, and a desire to make a difference, but marketing your coaching biz isn’t your thing?
Meet Michelle, your business bestie who knows exactly how to help coaches like you get seen, get heard, and get paying clients.
No more feeling invisible. Let’s make marketing easy-peasy and magical.
Make It Visible
#203: Why Great Coaches Struggle to Attract Clients (And How to Stop Feeling Invisible Online)
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Feeling invisible online? It’s not you—it’s your message.
In this episode, we’re breaking down why even the best coaches struggle to attract high-quality clients and sharing practical steps to help you stop feeling invisible.
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About Me:
Hey There! I’m Michelle! Your Visibility Marketing Coach, content and Email Marketing Strategist, Motivational Speaker, Author (…And soon to be your new business bestie!)
I’m an international speaker, Visibility Marketing Coach, and founder of Elevate LifeCoaching.
I help coaches like yourself to build your brand, attract high-quality 5-6 figure clients, and land paid speaking gigs.
I’ve been public speaking since I was 9 years old.
My dad helped me draft my first speech and signed me up for a contest. (Yep, voluntold!)
And since then, I’ve been the go-to person whenever someone needed a speaker on short notice.
At work, I was the one presenting, running workshops, and leading training sessions.
While everyone else stayed quiet, palms sweating, hoping not to get called on, I was the one grabbing the mic and taking the lead.
After working with hundreds of coaching clients to help them boost their visibility and market their businesses, I realized there’s a HUGE missing piece most coaches overlook.
This is the #1 strategy man top coaches use to grow their coaching business. are you using it?
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Tell me if this is you you pour hours into creating the perfect social media post only to hear crickets. Or perhaps you're putting yourself out there and showing up consistently and still feeling kind of invisible to the people that you know you are here and you're meant to help. Well, here is the good news. It is not about working harder or shouting louder or being more on more places, whether it's your LinkedIn, facebook or your Instagram. It's not about shouting louder. It's actually about working smarter, how you can work smarter and why greatest coaches are struggling to attract clients and how do we actually stop feeling this way? So if this episode is for you, let's dive right in.
Michelle Kuei:Hey, you're listening to Make it Visible Podcast. I'm your host, michelle Kui. I am a visibility marketing coach and soon to be your business bestie in the coaching business world. Not knowing how to connect with your audience grab the coaching business world. Not knowing how to connect with your audience, grab people's attention and get them excited to buy from you should never be the reason you give up on your dream to become a full-time coach. I'm all about making marketing the easiest part of your coaching business, so that you can turn a passion for coaching into a visible and profitable reality. So buckle up, ladies, let's get started.
Michelle Kuei:Okay, let's talk about, first of all. There is a lot of amazing coaches. I know who's out there and who's pouring their heart out going out on social media, doing live and doing Instagram the reels. They're dancing their way onto social, but somehow there is not a whole lot of engagement, there's not a whole lot of follower growing and you probably get more pitch to their service than, rather than, requesting for yours. It's not because you're not doing enough. It's actually you're not doing strategic things that would actually draw the clients in. And so posting content, that's great. That's creating a social media online presence. If you've been following me for a long time, you know I'm all about creating that online presence, making sure that you have all the front, the storefront, ready to go so that it's clear to your audience when they land on your social media profile.
Michelle Kuei:And if you have a website, that's even better. It's not a requirement, especially if you're just starting new, but if you've been out in the game for some time, I highly recommend and suggest that you do have a professional looking website, because, in fact, if you do want to land on speaking gig a lot of time. These are the stuff that people will be looking for, to whether or not you're legit. You're not just some pop up coach from somewhere on the internet. You actually have a legitimate business that you are trying to grow and build. Depending on where you are on your journey, if you're starting new, then perhaps you might want to hold back. Maybe you don't have the budget to create a website yet, or perhaps you've been out for a couple of years and you do have that bandwidth to have a professional looking website. I highly recommend that you actually have a website and if you need help to write those copies, let me know. Drop into the comment or reach out to me via email. I can definitely help you with the copies to make your words sound more like you only better.
Michelle Kuei:So there's a couple of reasons why coaches are struggling to attract clients. One is the content. They keep posting the content, but the information is just very dry. I'm pretty sure that you have come across these type of social media posts where it's about educational stuff. But educational stuff doesn't have to be boring and when you look around, a lot of coaches are posting on social media. But these are educational posts and when people go onto social. They're looking for entertainment. They're looking for something that's fun, something that's short, something that's punchy, something that attracts their attention.
Michelle Kuei:If you continue to post those dry and boring posts, I mean, it's great to create awareness for the fact that our mindset changes everything right. Believe me, I know this because I used to post the same stuff. If you scroll all the way back on my Instagram account, that's what I used to post. I used to post a lot of these dry material and content. It makes perfect sense why I wasn't getting the traction I wanted until I learned the fact that there's things that you need to do on social in order to create that engagement, to invite your audience to actually to converse with you or to have people reaching out to you or sending you DM. So just posting it's not going to be compelling enough. You need a strategy to do that, and I do have a program for that, by the way.
Michelle Kuei:Posting content is great, but it can be a little dry sometimes. Or the material is boring, or the topic that you have chosen is just too serious and people scrawl you by really quickly because there's something else that captures their attention. So where does their attention go? They go somewhere else. The other thing that why great coaches are struggling to attract client is the fact that sometimes you're attracting the wrong audience. You're focusing on too much of calling people out but, like a lot of time, what you decided to land on, it's not really what people resonate with.
Michelle Kuei:I remember coming across with this, this amazing coach, and she's wonderful, she's very inspiring. I read her, I read her story and it's really truly inspiring. But every time she posed, she always have that same rhythm of where the post came from and where she got the idea from. It's the same format all the time, right, and when we go out, when we speak to our people, the friends that we meet, or a stranger we encounter in grocery stores or places that we have never think of, and we have conversations. That's not the way that we talk.
Michelle Kuei:So just because you're on social, just because you're writing content or just because you're speaking on YouTube or podcasts or webinar, it doesn't mean that you have to change who you are right. So the way that you address to someone, the way that you talk and having a conversation with an audience, you don't want to lose that personality touch or that personal touch that brings people in, because who you are is the ultimate attraction for people wanting to be closer to you, right? So a lot of times, coaches are struggling to attract client because it's the wrong audience that they're in front of, and sometimes social media might just not be the answer. And the other reason why some of the coaches and great coaches they're struggling to attract client is that we all know this, because we probably spend a whole lot of time, and there's a couple episodes I was going through all my episodes that I have done in the past.
Michelle Kuei:There's episodes where I talked about why you need to have a niche and, same as a speaker, you need to have a defined topic that you would like to speak on and, whether you're a coach or a speaker, there's something about narrowing it down to your specialty, something that keep people, give them a reason to remember you by. That's really important and that's going to help you to attract the right audience. Because you have that clarity in terms of your messaging, because we all know that general advice. I can find it somewhere else. Why would I come to you? I come to you because you have a special area that you focus on and you have more knowledge than anybody else that I can trust.
Michelle Kuei:So having that a lack of clarity let's just put it that way a lack of clarity to your messaging, is the reason why you're not attracting those high quality clients. You're a great coach, right? We all know you went through the trainings and you have years of experiences. It's so much that you got the skills, you got the experience, you got the passion, but somehow that messaging is just not landing that post that you're putting out, the video that you're creating, it's just not resonating. What's the problem, right? So today, in this episode, let's break down the problem. Let's talk about the problem.
Michelle Kuei:It's not about how you show up. It's actually about where you show up and how does the audience perceive you. So a lot of times you'll hear me talking about the brand positioning. It's about the position that you are putting yourself in this market. That's going to lead to someone perceiving you as someone who is expert or someone who just another coach, and you don't want to be seen as just another coach. So the more clarity you have in terms of what is it about you that stands out from the rest of the speakers and coaches, the better you're going to be able to help to connect with the right audience that you want to attract, and that's your step number one, right?
Michelle Kuei:So the clarity is coming from you knowing exactly what is it about your topic, your niche, your specialty, your expertise that is different from everybody else. Yes, there's a personal touch. Your personality definitely play a role in here. How you speak to others, how you show up, you actually is the reason why you are different from all these other coaches, but the approach and the way that you describe it is also very important. So, until you have that clarity, sometimes you'll find yourself like you continue to refine your niche, but your niche is not the problem. It's actually you are the problem, right? Because you don't have that clarity in terms of what that niche is and therefore, no matter what kind of niche or topic that you came up, because you don't have that clarity in terms of what that niche is and therefore, no matter what kind of niche or topic that you came up with, you don't feel like it's landing, it's resonating, and so, if you don't have that clarity, you have that clarity issue and sometimes we're just way too close to our work in order to see it.
Michelle Kuei:And, as a matter of fact, I recently had this experience where I was having this clarity in terms of, oh, what is it about me that I can offer to my audience, my coaches and these female coaches who are trying to grow and scale their business, what is it about me? And so I had to look back, and this was through a conversation during a coaching calls, and so that clarity sometimes it comes from someone else who share that perspective of, hey, have you thought about approaching it from this perspective? And it's that moment of like light bulb moment that change everything that you do. And so you realize what makes you different and I'm guilty of this too is that I don't want to offend people, right? We don't want to have an opinion that's so strong that it hurts someone else's reputation or someone else's approach or someone else's perspective. And because of that, we tend to be very soft, we tend to be very gentle and, in other words, it almost feels like we're trying to please everyone and we don't want to piss off somebody or say the wrong words to make people feel offended. But if you think about it, do you still have those opinions? Probably, yes, you wouldn't come off very strong and say, oh, that person is wrong, that person doesn't know what they're talking about.
Michelle Kuei:You come off from a very loving place, but you do share your perspective, you do share your opinion about certain issues or topics, and so if you try to please anyone, then it's hard for people to know, like, where do you stand? And you need to pick a stand. Especially if you have a topic that you're thinking about in speaking, or perhaps you're a coach and you rather focus on one methodology versus another, then you do need to stand up and take a stand right, take a viewpoint, and that's really important, and it also helps to attract the right audience to you, because chances are the audience that you're attracting also resonate with some of the things that you're sharing, or the perspective or the value that you're delivering through your content, through your videos or through anything that you create and put out into the world. Okay, so those are the problems that coaches great, amazing coaches who are not attracting clients. So how do we stop feeling this way? Right, and that's probably client.
Michelle Kuei:So how do we stop feeling this way right, and that's probably it's been going through your mind? We all know we can feel that when something is not clicking, something is not translating to money, or you're looking at your bank. You continue to put out, but you're not drawing in cash or revenues, but you would like to have this business. So, ultimately, how do we actually stop feeling this way? So here are some of the ways that you can stop from feeling invisible online. So this is something that I have actually gone through and these are the steps that have worked for me. So hopefully I'm sharing these steps with you that you can actually think about where, towards the end of the year, and you can think about how to incorporate these elements and take some actions so that, starting in 2025, you're not going to feel like you're invisible and you're just being overlooked. Okay. So step number one is to realize that this feeling of discouraged, this feeling of invisible on social or anywhere, right, when you go in person or virtual, in the real world, or you're here online, it's not a reflection of your talent or your potential. Okay, all right.
Michelle Kuei:Sometimes I feel like we need to remind each other that it's not your skill, it's not your talent that's in questions. It's because the strategyable, and we need to get that clear so that, before you start enrolling yourself to more certification program or spending more, let's take a step back and look at all the skills that you already have? Have you been using them to their fullest? All the skills that you have learned and acquired so far? Have you been using them to the fullest? If not, it's not because that skill is not good enough. That's not enough. It's because how you present it, how you show it and how you describe it to the general public, it's not landing. And if that is the case by enrolling yourself into another coaching program or to another skill, learning another skill or getting another certification that is not going to address the problem that you had originally. So we need to get that clear. It's not your skill or talent that's in question, it's the approach, the strategy that's in question and therefore you haven't been able to use the skills that you already have Right. So let's start with that as number one.
Michelle Kuei:Step number two is we all go through our everyday life. We have this narrative that we all carry in our head, narrative that we all carry in our head. And same thing with your dream client. They have this constant inner critics, the voice in their head. They're walking around and thinking about their problem, that they have. And these are the things that you want to address to your dream client and you want to create content, whether it's a live video, or maybe it's an Instagram reel or a short video that you're going to post on YouTube, or perhaps it's a social media content that you're going to put out. You want to be able to address the internal narrative that they have and talk with them Not talk to them, but talk with them and walk them through the journey of how your approach is going to help to solve that problem. So focus on addressing those internal narratives that your dream clients would have. And how do you do that?
Michelle Kuei:I personally found and those of you who's following me for a long time I'm a big fan of storytelling. So a lot of time I tell stories about how I was a negative self-talker and there's a long history of how I was using a lot of the negative comments or criticism towards myself, and so you want to be able to use and tell your own stories about how you were able to overcome something. Or perhaps it's your client who are able to have this transformation that they're experiencing, and so use those simple aha moment to demonstrate how this approach and what they're struggling it's. They're not feeling it alone, right? So tell the story. That will connect. So that's just so far we talked about.
Michelle Kuei:Step number one is you don't wanna think about, you, don't want to think about you, don't want to think and feel that you need more certification in order to prove to somebody that you're good enough, right? So that's step number one. That's a mindset shift and that's something that you would have to put your stick in the ground and say, yeah, no, I'm going to use my skills, what I have right now, to the fullest before I enroll myself to another certification program. Okay, cause you'll be surprised how many coaches actually enrolled themselves and have a lot of badges, but they're still struggling to get clients. So it's not how many badges that you have is what are you going to do with these badges? If you have no clients, what are you going to do with them? Nothing, okay.
Michelle Kuei:So that once you get that clear, then you want to create content. Content would be like something like a video, or maybe a blog post or a social media post, or maybe it's a podcast episode like this, right? So those moments you want to address what are some of the things that your dream clients are feeling or they're struggling with, and how you have the solution that's going to help them. And how do you connect with them? You connect with them through storytelling, whether it's your own stories or your client's transformational story. Share those aha moments with your dream client, with your audience, to prove the point that, hey, they're not dealing with, they're dealing this alone. There's actually people out there who's like them, who's dealing the same thing. So storytelling is your really best skills and best strategy that I wanted to bet my dollars in 2025, that's actually going to take off a huge okay, it's been taking off like for years and years throughout history. But I bet 2025, you're going to see a lot more coaches and speakers using storytelling.
Michelle Kuei:Okay, and stop overthinking about your content. I cannot tell you so. Over the years, I have worked with hundreds of coaches and showing them how to create that and build that social media presence and so that they can start market their coaching business, and I cannot tell you how many coaches I have encountered. They overthink their content all the time. Should I use this line? Should I say this? Is that too complicated? Is it too much? So you see, all these overthinking. Brilliant mind, okay, brilliant human you are, and you end up spending so much time perfecting that content, your content, whether it's a video again video I'm going to use content in general sense, as in video.
Michelle Kuei:Whether you like to produce video, podcast or anything, any type of format that you would like to share with your audience is that you don't want to overthink it. The overthinking is only going to stop you from posting it, and your content does you no good if you keep it in your Google Drive or your hard drive and it's not out there, right? That's why you're not attracting clients, because it's in your hard drive and nobody else saw it. And I remember I had a conversation with one of my clients and she's notorious for keeping lots of notes. Like her notebook was full. She had pages upon pages of ideas and pages upon pages of content. But those pages of pages of content and ideas, if you don't send it out to the world, it's always just going to be part of your notebook and the world will never see it. And so stop thinking about your content. Just put it out there. Don't let it be perfect, right? You're not a copywriter. You're not like me.
Michelle Kuei:I love and enjoy creating content. I love and enjoy having these little tidbits out on the social. I rarely write anything. Keep it just for my notebook. It's always I have an idea, I scheduled it and I post it and I can take it back and refine it, and so don't overthink your content. Okay, and sometimes you do want to.
Michelle Kuei:So the next step is really about taking it back and think about how did it land for some of the people. What are some of the comments that I have received? Are they encouraging? For example, a couple of weeks ago, I had sent out an email. It had nothing to do with coaching per se, it was more about the current situation and I took a moment to take a stand and validated the feelings that a lot of women are going through after the election. And that email I got so many responses back, but before I clicked that send, I was hesitating. I was thinking about whether or not my message was clear and whether or not I expressed what I truly felt and what others might be feeling. Moment, you want to take a step back and reflect on what do I want this message to be right and how is it going to receive by the person and what type of response that I got back. And I was really glad that I had sent out that message because the comments that I have received. It was just very empowering. It really brought me in tears knowing that there are women out there who felt the same way that I did. It was a lot of sadness, grief, that I share in that email, and I was really inspired and also feeling empowered by the fact that I wasn't the only one who felt that way.
Michelle Kuei:But when you create these content, once you publish them, you want to think about. Was my message clear? Did I show up authentically, right? So if you're creating a post and you're using ChatGPT, take a moment before you post it. Would this be something that I would typically said and that's a great copywriting skills that you can use in your own content creation? And I would love for you to try this out Before you post anything, go through it and read through it to yourself, or before you go onto a stage and say something right? Is this something that I would say in my everyday life? If the answer is no, then don't post it, because then you're not showing up authentically. But if the answer is yes this is how I would feel, this is how I would say to others then by all means, do share, right, because that to me is authenticity.
Michelle Kuei:And so take a moment before you do anything or taking the action, think about would this be something a reflection of my brand, of my person, who I am, or is this just so that I can get more engagement? And that would be a very important notion to think about. You want to create a brand. Whether you're a speaker or coaches, you have a business and your business represents something. Your business represents you. Especially, if you're a solopreneur and you are basically the face of your business, then you don't want to have the public to perceive as somebody who you're not. And so take a moment and reflect all the things that you're putting out into the world, whether or not this is something that you would typically use, and is it authentic? Does it show authenticity? Let's summarize real quick. Okay. Now social media. I know a lot of you are using it, leveraging it to grow your audience, to be online, to be visible. But here's the thing, okay and I say this because this is also true for me and earlier I talked about I have went back and thought about what is it that I did that really changed my coaching business and really changed on how my approach to grow and scale my business is that I realized social media was only part of the puzzle.
Michelle Kuei:I remember when I first started out, I was struggling in the in-person world because a lot of time I didn't know how to approach, I didn't know how to talk to people, and so majority of my time I brought it back to social. Because social was easy for me to create content and I didn't have a lot of time that I could leverage to attend all these networking events. So I needed to save time, I needed to save money, I needed to work more efficiently. So social media was something that's more efficient, something that was easy for me to access. But that was only part of the puzzle. There's another way that you can actually amplify and connect with your dream ideal client in the way that feels even more powerful and feels less exhausting. Okay, so I'm going to give you a heads up. I am actually working on putting together a brand new masterclass where I'm going to show you and be teaching you exactly how you can grow your coaching business by showing up in a way that position you as the go-to authority in the niche.
Michelle Kuei:Okay and this is, in addition, whether or not you want to be on social or not, this masterclass is or not you want to be on social or not, this masterclass is might be it really might be the answer for you, because this is something that I have not done before and, as I reflect back, social media really did take a take my business off, but that was only part of the pieces of the puzzle. There's another piece that I haven't really shared to the public or to all of you this way, but it really amplified what I was doing on social. So the two came really nice together and I'm putting together a masterclass that I'm going to share exactly what that missing piece is. If you'd like to stay in the loop, there's a link down in the episode note. Go ahead and be subscribed to my newsletter using the link in the episode note down below, and what you're going to do is you'll be the first to know and, plus, you'll be getting all my additional resources that I send out every Monday and Friday, okay, so if you like to stay in the loop and you wanted to get the be the first to know when I have this masterclass coming out very soon, then go ahead and subscribe to my newsletter and I will send you more additional resources every Monday and Friday. Okay, so that's recap.
Michelle Kuei:Here are some of the takeaways that I want you to walk away with from today's episode. Is that, first of all, you are not invisible because you're not good enough, right, we are clear on that. You are invisible because your message is not reaching to the right people in the right way on social, and we can fix that. There's another way that you can make it not so exhausting, and it's actually quite enjoyable, if I may say so myself. So if this episode is speaking to you, then be sure to share it with a fellow coach who needs to hear this. And don't forget to join me in the next episode where I'm going to talk about. Let me see what we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about why your small audience maybe you only have a small followers, small number of people on your email list and how that actually could be your biggest asset. That would be episode number 204. We are on a roll this year. We are actually. This episode is actually 203.
Michelle Kuei:If you've been liking and enjoying this podcast, I would love, love, love for you to go ahead and share it with a friend.
Michelle Kuei:Invite them, because there's a lot of things I'm going to talk about next year that you are going to absolutely love it, and I have a couple lined up for a guest speaker as well, so hopefully this is going to address a lot, helping you, especially to really take 2025 to a place where you've been waiting for Until next time.
Michelle Kuei:Keep showing up, keep shining and keep thriving. The world needs your voice and I will see you in the next episode. Thank you for listening to Make it Visible podcast in the next episode. Thank you for listening to Make it Visible podcast. If you love this episode and want deeper support for your coaching business, head over to elevatelifecoachingorg and see how we can partner together to turn your passion into a profitable business. I help female coaches launch and scale their coaching business faster than ever without wasted time and money, filling the gaps in your marketing strategies, creating a simple and easy to follow system so you can accelerate on the path of coaching business that you love to wake up to. Head over to elevatelifecoachingorg and grab a free strategy audit today.
