Mike Hunder: Online Courses Are a Great Way to Start Your Coaching Business

Are you already a coach but find that you are tapped out from serving clients one-on-one? Are you a teacher who finds it difficult to grow your reach beyond in-classroom training?

Are you an experienced professional or an entrepreneur who believes that you have so much more to contribute to help others succeed? Then the online coaching business is a great way for you to do all this!

You can create a coaching course into a full-fledged online information product that you can sell to your audience, over and again.

Here’s how you can start a coaching business using online courses – including how to research your course ideas, create valuable content, and launch your course.

Research your coaching course idea

The big difference between a coaching course that actually sells and the one that doesn’t is mostly down to your course idea. Your idea is the first step in your online coaching business startup. Researching your course idea means finding an idea that you are passionate about, that catches the attention of your ideal clients, and is profitable. That’s why finding a course idea is not just about picking a topic, it is about narrowing it down to an idea that solves specific problems for your clients.

Make a profile of your ideal audience

When I teach small business classes, I often ask participants this question: “Who are your customers?”

I am often surprised that many small business people either have no idea who will buy from them or assume that ‘everyone’ will! This is a losing proposition! The thing is to create a profile of those who are likely to buy from you and their pain points. That way, you can appropriately target your initial marketing efforts.

Set up your business website

The best way to set up your place of business online is to build a business website. This is the easiest way for your ideal clients to find out more about you and the details of your online coaching course. It also provides an unpaid marketing service for you, 24/7. You can also include content about your landing page, about page, sales page, blog page and contact page for your course – to position you as a brand expert, and a ‘call for action’.

Generate Leads

With your clients’ identification and your business website in place, the next thing to do is to plan for a steady flow of audience who are interested in buying your course. By this, you create a freebie to generate leads and begin to promote it on your website. You can also promote your freebie on your business cards and mention it in your public speaking engagements. You can use Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, WhatsApp tools, etc., to help you build a list of the audience that is interested in the online course you plan on selling at a later date.

Create valuable content

One good thing about creating your online course content – if you are already a teacher, a coach, an experienced professional, or an entrepreneur – is that you already have the experience and the drive. Now drawing from your existing expertise and what you know about your clients’ pain points, you can then structure your course content in a logical sequence – step by step. This will lead to results that your audience seeks. That’s how you put together a valuable course content for your clients.

Host your course content in your online school

I have heard people say: “you don’t need an online school to deliver your online course because you can deliver it via email, Facebook, WhatsApp, or youtube”. Although this is true, it is not just difficult to control the learning experiences of your clients on these platforms, but your clients are also not yours – they belong to those platforms. That’s why the best way to deliver the kind of learning opportunities – plus the flexibility that creates real impact for your clients – is by creating your online school. Your clients will access your course there, and it’s protected. Then your clients are yours.

Launch your online course

With the above steps in place, you can now launch and begin to sell your online course. You don’t have to be a good marketer to successfully sell your online course; all you require is to make it a priority. As you launch, online sales strategies are readily available in the market.  Just implement them – step by step. That way, you’ll drive people to your online coaching course, impact lives and get rewarded. And ultimately, thrive.

For additional reading, you can request “Choose Your Profitable Course Idea: A Workbook” from my website: www.mikehunder.com