3 Ways to Build Credibility (Even if You Don’t Have Testimonials Yet)

One of the biggest struggles new coaches face is the chicken-and-egg problem: How do I charge for coaching when I don’t have testimonials yet?

 And how do I get testimonials if I haven’t charged anyone?

In this episode of Make It Visible, I’m breaking down 3 ways to prove your credibility and authority even if you don’t have a single client success story yet. Because yes — you can confidently charge $5K without a wall of testimonials to back you up.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode: 

1. Why your “I help” statement is more than just an elevator pitch).

2. How to use your story, background, or industry data to build authority before your first client.

3. How showing a clear framework instantly builds trust and confidence in your offer.

Links & Resources:

 👉 Save your spot in the 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 found this episode helpful, share it with a coach who needs to hear it. And don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss a visibility tip that helps you get seen, get clients, and grow your coaching business.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Coaching Chicken and Egg Problem
• 1:49 Clarity: Your First Credibility Builder
• 5:26 Borrowing Proof: Leverage Your Story
• 7:45 Proof in the Process: Show Your Framework
• 9:52 Putting It All Together
• 11:28 Free Masterclass Invitation

Transcript

Michelle: 0:00

Today we are going to tackle one of the chicken and egg problem of coaching. Now I hear this a lot how can I charge a high ticket when I don't have any testimonials yet? And on the other hand, some of you may be asking how do I get testimonials if I haven't charged anybody? So you see the dilemma you're charging, you don't have any client, you don't charge. And you're charging, you don't have any client, you don't charge and you are stuck with no paying client, so you could never get to a testimonial. So if you ever thought, who am I to ask for that high ticket without any testimonial or any proof, then, my friend, today you are at the right place. I'm going to break down three ways that you can prove your credibility and authority even if you don't have a wall of testimonial yet. And, yes, you can totally show your worth even before you had a single client who says she changed my life.

Michelle: 0:58

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 feel 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. Make your coaching business visible.

Michelle: 1:49

So the first way that you can prove your credibility and authority is having clarity. Now hear me out before you throw tomatoes at me. So it's not so much of your clarity. I'm pretty sure you're clear what you want to do in your coaching business and who you want to help and what do you help them with. If you don't have that clear, you need to come and join me inside my upcoming masterclass, because a lot of what we're talking about in the masterclass is about giving you the clarity. So way number one to prove it is you need to have clarity Now.

Michelle: 2:18

Clarity is for your clients, your potential clients, to know exactly what kind of life they're going to have as a result of working with you. So let me repeat that again you need to have clarity, but that clarity is for your potential client to see and to understand that, hey, when I signed up with this coach, this is exactly what I'm going to get, and this is exactly why I need to sign up. When they look at your profile, your social media, your website, will whatever that you put out, your marketing material can they tell what they're going to be able to do now? If they cannot tell, then you need to have that clarity. How do you get that clarity? You come to Michelle's master class.

Michelle: 3:03

No, I'm just kidding, but that's essentially why you need to have the clarity from yourself and so that when you articulate your message out there, your client, your potential client, would also have the clarity in terms of when I signed up with you, what is the result that I'm going to expect and what is essentially what your I help statement is really the reason for right. A lot of us think that the I help statement is just a way for me to do an elevated pitch. It looks nice on my social, I'm going to update it so people will come across. But what you don't know is that your I help statement is also a positioning statement.

Michelle: 3:46

Your I help statement is also a positioning statement. It helps you to position yourself in the market, of why your clients need to hire you. And this is why you need to have a niche, right? Not because it's for you, because when you have a niche, your statement is really to be there to help your audience to know exactly what's in it for them, without having to scrawl through all your social media posts or this post is about this and that post is about your program right? People are too busy. We only have three seconds to capture their attention. So if I don't have that information within that three seconds, then I'm just going to check out the next coach or I'm going to sc you by and I have no idea. I still have no idea of what is it that you do and how you can help me with. So you want to have the clarity in your message to make people feel that it is safe to invest their life with you.

Michelle: 4:38

So that's way number one is how you have that credibility and authority. You need to have the clarity, but your clarity also lies within the fact that you are basically telling your audience when you signed up with me, this is what you get, and most coaches a lot of like coaches. I know you're not having that. You don't have that, people come across your profile. They don't get that sense of why I need to have this. So that's way number one. Way number one to prove your credibility and authority, especially authority when you have that position statement, right, and that would help even if you don't have any testimonial yet. And that's basically where you start. You start to get paying clients that you serve and they'll be able to give you a good testimonial.

Michelle: 5:26

Okay, way number two that you can build your credibility and authority is you can borrow proof. Now, what do I mean by that? It means that you wanted to lean into, maybe, your own story. Maybe you had a journey of how you became a coach and what coaching means to you or what coaching had done for you. Right, your own story might be your own testimonial, your background, your experience, your training and even some of the industry data that can back you, back up your offer. So how do you do this Example?

Michelle: 5:59

Let's say, in my corporate career, I help teams to go from burnout to balance. Now I do the same for women leaders through coaching. So if your audience happen to be female leaders or women leaders, and regardless what industry they're in, if you're helping them from burnout to balance, then that could be potentially how you borrow the proof, because, from your past experience in my corporate career or as a former corporate career person right, hr leaders I help teams to go from burnout to balance. So you're using your own experience, your own training and background to provide the testimonial that, hey, this is not something new, it's not my first rodeo and you can trust the fact that I know what I'm talking about. I know what I do. So the other scenario would be leveraging the industry data. Right, you could leverage something like research shows that 70% of people who stuck in the job that they hate and that's why I created a framework to help you make a change in the next 90 days and you could have a three-month program that you help people who feel stuck in their career to do exactly that. But you leverage some of the industry data. So what is that? Data from your own industry or the industry that you want to serve? You can also borrow that as your testimonial, as your proof, so you don't need a testimonial yet. You can actually just stand on your own stories, your expertise or even some of the universal truth that can prove that you know your stuff.

Michelle: 7:39

Now the third way that you can prove your credibility and authority is proof in the process. Now, this is pretty easy because you probably have lived an incredible life right before you became a coach. So your credibility lives in your process. If you can walk through a simple framework of how you help others, either yourself or the people around you, to go from stuck to result, whatever that result may be, then your audience instantaneously will trust you a little more, because essentially people don't buy coaching, they buy certainty. When you can clearly explain here's the process, or here are the steps, or here's the framework that it had helped me, or what have worked, then that automatically builds credibility. You can even use combining the proof in the process with the borrowed proof, like the previously that we talked about. Research shows that 70% of the people, you can combine a couple of them to really prove that this process will work. So essentially your testimonial.

Michelle: 8:51

Once you start doing this let's say you have no paying client, you don't have a whole lot of testimonial to showcase, right to prove that your process worked or your coaching skills worked then you can leverage one of the three ways that we just talked about. But at the end of the three ways that we just talked about. But at the end of the day, the goal is for you to get some paying clients so that the testimonial will come. And this is how you do it. First of all, you think about the clarity right Is my statement, is my iHealth statement, giving my audience a clarity in terms of what I help them with? And secondly, you can borrow some of the industry proof or maybe it's your own story of how you have lived that experience. And then three is if you have lived that experience, what are the steps that have worked and that could be your great testimonial in itself. So here's the takeaway from today is that your credibility it's not just about the client results, it's also about the way that you position yourself.

Michelle: 9:53

Remember, your I help statement does more than just look pretty or just sound nice. When you go to a networking event or when you're introducing yourself, it actually helps you to position even without saying anything else or anything. Following your audience would be already having their eyes open and they're like waiting, tell me more, tell me more. And I recently had a client that we work on her I help statement and she was sharing that when she goes to networking event there. People are coming up to her and say tell me more event. People are coming up to her and say tell me more, and so that's what that statement is meant to do. So we talked about getting clear on who you help and how right. That's the positioning statement.

Michelle: 10:36

And the other way that you can build your credibility and authority is to borrow proof from your story, your training or the research and you can show off your process like it's your best case study. Do that and, yes, you can confidently charge higher ticket even before your testimonial rolls in, because your process and the proof that you're borrowing it's probably a lot of people have already done it and used it. So think about what you can leverage to prove and show that testimonial even without any paying client. Now, if this resonates and it hits home for you, I am having a free masterclass coming up very shortly and it's called your First 5K Month how to Market, get Clients and Build an Online Coaching Business, even If You're New 5k month how to market, get clients and build an online coaching business.

Michelle: 11:28

Even if you're new, because a lot of newbie coaches out there you are struggling, first of all, to get a niche and now there's no testimonial right, because you probably haven't been able to get any clients yet. So you're sitting there, your confidence start to fade away and your skills start getting rusty. So if this is something that you find value, please come and join me inside the masterclass. Inside, I'm going to dive deeper all the mistakes that new coaches are making and trying to get paying clients. Plus, I'm going to talk about how you package all this genius into offer that people are actually would be happy to pay for. So there's a link down in the episode description. Go ahead and save yourself a seat. And hey, if you found this helpful and that another coach is working on exactly this and they need to hear this, share that link with them, because we're in this together and let's invite them and make sure that they don't miss it. And until then, I will see you in the next episode.

Speaker 2: 12:34

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 elevate lifeelifecoachingorg and grab a free strategy audit today.