#220: Why You’re Struggling to Get Coaching Clients (And What to Do About It)

Most life coaches struggle in the beginning — not because they’re bad at coaching, but because of three sneaky mistakes that quietly block discovery calls and paying clients.

In this episode, I’ll break down:

• Why calling yourself a life coach is too broad and keeps clients confused
• The comparison trap that makes your offer feel less valuable than other coaches
• How fuzzy messaging kills sales — and what to say instead so people book with you

And here’s the good news: each of these problems has a solution. Yes, you can get paying clients, and yes, you can hit your first $5K month — without giving away free sessions forever.

👉 Join my free masterclass: Your First $5K Month: How to Market, Get Clients, and Build an Online Coaching Biz (Even if You’re New)
https://coachwithclients.com/5kmasterclass

✨ If you’re new — or “new-ish” — and you’re ready to stop guessing and start getting clients, this masterclass is for you. Save your seat today!

#LifeCoach #CoachingBusiness #GetCoachingClients

Chapters

• 0:00 Why Getting Clients Is The Real Challenge
• 1:45 Problem #1: Your "Life Coach" Title
• 7:30 Problem #2: Falling Into Comparison Traps
• 11:20 Problem #3: Your Coaching Offer Is Fuzzy
• 14:30 Three Solutions For Consistent Clients
• 16:00 Masterclass Invitation & Episode Closing

Transcript

Michelle: 0:01

The hardest part of building and starting your life coaching business is not coaching, it is actually getting paying clients. And if you ever thought why is it so hard for me, then it looks like for everybody else. I promise you you are not doing anything wrong. You just haven't developed the skills of how to get your message out there in front of the right audience. Today I am going to walk you through the three sneaky reasons why most coaches, and especially live coaches, why you're struggling to sign and getting paying clients and, most importantly, how do you go about fixing them? Because once you see these problems and you might be already struggling with them. So once you see them, once you know how to solve them, I promise you things are going to start to change. Hey coach, welcome. To Make it Visible podcast. I'm Michelle Kuei, your visibility marketing coach, and I help female life coaches to get seen in all the right places, attract happy, paying clients and build a coaching business that actually feels good to run. Even if you are still trying to figure things out, each week I'm giving you visibility tips, simple marketing strategies and showing you how to create the kind of content that connects with your audience so that you can stand out, build your authority and attract clients. Who's already feeling like a yes before they jump onto your discovery call? So grab a notebook, pour yourself a favorite drink and let's make your coaching business visible, all right. So mistakes? And reason number one is you're calling yourself a life coach. Now, before you throw a tomato at me, just hear me out.

Michelle: 1:56

Some of you might be out there and you're doing really creative thinking. You're popping into ChatGPT and you're thinking I don't want to call myself a white coach, so what else can I call myself? And, honestly, your client is not paying you because of your title. They're actually paying you for the result that they can get from you. So, honestly, when you look at your own signing up to a coaching program behavior, or you really look at how all these clients are signing up in the coaching industry, a lot of us don't even bother to look at what title you call yourself. So why does the title matter? It only matters to you and not so much to your clients that you're working with.

Michelle: 2:34

You can call yourself a life coach, mindset coach, motivational coach or empowerment coach, as long as you can deliver the results that you're promising me right when I first signed up with you when you look at all the life coaches out there and why they're struggling with the title life coach is because life in itself is pretty broad, right, it's like you're saying you're telling people that you are a personal life coach Cool, but what does that mean? Do you help me bake my sourdough bread? Do you help me to train for a body competition? What is it so, when you tell people that you are a life coach, what they're actually hearing is that you're helping people with everything. So how do you fix that? And, unfortunately, what that also means is that it also indicates that you'll probably help me with everything and therefore anybody can jump into your discovery call. And some of them let's face it, they're not your best client, right? They might be financially struggling with something, or they just won't be able to pay you for the price point that you're asking. And, let's face it, there's able to pay you for the price point that you're asking.

Michelle: 3:46

And, let's face it, there's nothing wrong with asking for the price and wanting that 5K month or whatever that your financial goal is for your business, because you're running a business, you're not running a charity, and so, first of all, you don't want to have these clients who's jumping onto your discovery call and taking up a time slot when that time slot can be so beneficial to someone who actually need it? So that's the problem with calling yourself a life coach is that it's telling people that, hey, you help with everything and I totally get it right. Narrowing it down, it feels like a mission impossible. If you look at you live your life as a whole. We don't live our life in a little tiny compartment that we'll live chart that you are using with your client. The ultimate solution to that is that you can call yourself life coach, but you need to be able to articulate is there a specific problem or solution that you're helping your client to resolve? Because essentially, your clients are buying the solution to a specific problem that they're having.

Michelle: 4:53

So let's say, I'm stressing out about my career and in that sense, when I come to you, I don't want someone who just say, oh, I'm a life coach, I help with life. I want someone who can say I help women in the HR world stop dreading Mondays and landing the job that they actually like. That's a little more specific and that tells me that you're probably some kind of career coach, right? Or someone who's helping me going through life transition and I'll get to. I need to create another episode about the term life transition, because a lot of coaches out there don't like the word life transition. But essentially it's about life changing. But essentially you're helping people moving through life and navigating through life and you're a transition coach. But specific make people lean in vague will just keep people scrolling by, so you can call yourself a life coach.

Michelle: 5:48

However, your statement better have something a little more specific in terms of I'm not just helping you with any area of your life, I'm helping you with this specific area of life. So what is that specific area of the life that you're helping people with? And, honestly, this is also where the niche drama comes in right, because you end up spending months, if not years, trying to find a space that you feel aligned and that you would like to pay. Put you a flag on that mountain and say this is it, this is who I am, this is who I want to help, and you might find yourself coming up with a title or a clever title, and I have seen clients who come to me and they came up with these clever title that it's very, very interesting and I can totally see them. However, when you are getting out there into the world I almost want to bet my hundred dollar bill on that you're sending people off the wrong message. So when you come up with your title, please do not be too clever, do not be too creative, because you're sending out the title out there and nobody else but besides, you can understand that and that is a no. So you definitely want to be careful trying to be creative with your title. If you are stuck, just simply call yourself a life coach. I promise you people are willing to pay for what you are offering if you're able to articulate that value, all right.

Michelle: 7:19

So that was reason number one why most life coaches are struggling to get paying clients. We're so hung up with the title itself and just coming up with the title and knowing who I help, which area of life, that wheel of life I want to put myself in, that would take coaches months, if not years, trying to figure that out. Reason number two why most coaches are struggling with getting paying clients is that we all fall into that comparison trap. Now, let's face it, let's call it for what it is. No matter how much inner work that you have done, we still fall into that trap of when you see your fellow coach who's able to get better clients. They're getting paid for their coaching business because they're in the niche where they're either helping people making more money or they got something quote-unquote special that allow them to differentiate themselves from you.

Michelle: 8:15

So you start finding yourself wondering if you should do the same, even if you don't have a whole lot of experience in the corporate world. You're thinking maybe I should go into the corporate world, or maybe my niche, my target audience, a professional woman, the white collar because those are the people who can afford me, right? That is a sign of comparison trap, because then you're thinking that in order to make money in my coaching business, I need to be in a space where people can afford me. But you're not realizing that is not the problem. The problem is your message is not articulating the value to those who actually need your help and who are actually willing to pay for whatever that you have to offer if you're able to tell them exactly what you do. So don't feel like you need to be someone who you are, not just so that you can get people who can afford you and a lot of time.

Michelle: 9:15

This is also, one of the huge mistakes I see a lot of life coaches are making is you're making an assumption that somebody else is not able to afford you and therefore you put yourself inside this other box where you're limited to the audience that you're trying to reach. And this is why you're making it so hard for yourself, because you're assuming you're making that assumption. All right if that's who you are. The comparison trap it's real, it's out there and there's that limiting belief where, oh, people will either pay money in order to make money or people will just Google their way out of their own problem and therefore they're not willing to pay me. So if you're out there calling yourself a life coach, it might feel maybe I need to call myself a leadership coach, executive coach or business coach, for whatever reason, trying to help people making that six figure. Otherwise I'm going to be struggling and therefore I am not going to get any paying client.

Michelle: 10:14

If you ever think or thought about that, who's going to pay me four figure to fix their life? Let me just say that I hear this from almost every new life coach I talk to and what I want you to hear is that no people are willing to pay more you to fix their life. But the way that they see it is that they don't see it as help me to fix my life. They see it as helping me to fix or to resolve a specific area of my life that has been very painful, that is urgent, that I need to take care of, and that is a reframe that you want to make that's going to make a difference in your business. Your life needs to be like this easy, something that you're excited to wake up to, and so if your passion is in life coaching, then let it be life coaching. You don't have to put yourself into this mold where you see other people are doing this and therefore you feel like, in order to be successful in your coaching business, I need to also do this.

Michelle: 11:23

Reason number three why a lot of life coaches are struggling to get paying client is because your offering is a little fuzzy, and a lot of life coaches who come to me, they come to me with a package, a little package where they describe me either a month or three months or six months or even a year. Now think about this If you're struggling to get a client for the three months, chances are you're going to have a lot of struggle to fill the client's roster in your one year program, and most of us don't start with a one year program because that's a lot of commitment, it takes a lot of time to develop and whatever that you put in, you better have a way of articulating why someone wants to come in for a whole year with you, right? So if you're just starting new, I would advise you not to come up with this one-year package. It's dreamy, it's great, it looks fantastic, but the reality is you're not even quite sure what is that transformation to deliver for someone within that 30 days or maybe within the first three months. So you don't want to create a package that's going to either undersell yourself for the one year package or you don't want to undervalue your package for that one year and thinking that all the one year is going to cost someone $10,000. When you have trouble filling that seat or filling your roster client roster within that first month.

Michelle: 12:50

So your coaching offer is something that's really important, that you need to think about and you also need to be able to articulate it. Think about this. So if I were to ask you like, what do you do? And you might be saying, well, I kind of help people like living life to the fullest, I would be lost. I wouldn't know why I should be signing up with you and let alone booking a call with you. But if you are saying, if you can articulate that I help women who feel stuck in burnout, taking back their confidence, rebuild their energy so that they feel like themselves again, now we're getting somewhere. Now it's a little better right, that's a little more clear, and that would probably make me more curious. If I'm someone who's stuck in the burnout and I would like to get some more energy, I would like to have some more me time throughout my busy week or busy schedule. That would make me want to talk to you. All right. So we talked about the three big reasons why most life coaches are struggling to get paying client. So the good news is and honestly, there's more right. There's more mistakes that I see coaches are making on a daily basis, and these are the coaches who come to me with their problems and every single one of those problems. There's a solution for that.

Michelle: 14:07

And yes, building a coaching business that pays you so that you can hit your first 5K months, it's totally doable. It does not take five years to do this. It does not take you 10 certification in years to do this. It does not take you 10 certifications in order to accomplish this, and it certainly does not require you to give away all your free session forever. It only takes for you to do three things differently. Number one is getting clear about your message and being able to package your skills, your coaching skills, your certification, your genius, into an actual coaching offer or coaching package that get people to say, oh yeah, that's me, I really need this and this is so helpful. This is exactly what I've been looking for. You need to be able to do that, and you also need to be able to articulate the message and your offer to your audience, to those who have never met you, who are coming across your coaching business for the very first time. You need to be able to articulate that and getting people to nodding their head along the way and saying, yeah, this is totally makes sense. This is exactly what I'm struggling for, right. This is what I need. How do I sign up? You need to be able to do that now, and that is exactly why I'm hosting a free masterclass. It's called your First 5K Months how to Market, get Clients and Build an Online Coaching Business, even If you Are you are new.

Michelle: 15:43

Now, this master class is for someone who's new or newish if you feel like you're 80% ready to launch your business, but you're stuck in this guessing game right, you're not quite sure if this is going to land. Or sometimes I see this happening all the time in some of the coaches who think that they have a niche. They came up with a statement, they have brainstormed it with chat, gpt, but when they're putting their offer out there and they're hearing crickets, if you've been trying to do this on your own and you're trying to like moving all the pieces, putting all the pieces of the puzzle together, and you're hearing crickets, that is a sign, my friend. That is a sign. And this masterclass is going to teach you exactly the three mistakes that keep new coaches, newbie coaches, feeling stuck.

Michelle: 16:36

I'm going to give you a simple strategies of how to articulate and how to package your skills, your genius, so that people would actually listen, lean in and want to pay for it. And, lastly, I'm going to share the five questions and I'm going to give you the answers that every life coaches need to have in order to have consistent, paying clients life coaches need to have in order to have consistent paying clients. So if you've been out there and you're spinning your wheel and you're trying to do this like DIY, putting all the pieces together or maybe you already have some pieces together but you're not quite sure how to get out there in front of the right people share this episode and sign up to the masterclass, because in this masterclass, I'm going to cover all the things that you need to know in order to get your happy paying clients. I will see you inside the class.

Speaker 2: 17:42

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. 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.