Online Coaching – Boost Your Product Sales

Spoiler Alert: You can become a Coach of Anything !!!

And only then you earn the right to sell anything. First show, coach and then sell.

The thing is, look at the internet – you know it is a marketplace. So, if you wanna sell anything, then you need to position yourself well for that NICHE. In this section, I am gonna tell you the importance and how to position yourself. In the next section, you will see how to make yourself a compelling personal brand story. In the 3rd section, we will have a look at how an artist can build his own personal brand by becoming an online coach.

The future of Online Coaching is very bright in India as to the rest of the world. If you wish to sell your service, first you gotta show and tell what you do. Build trust, then sell anything without being salesy or pushy. Gone are the days when you say you don’t have time for a coffee with your friend or relative. For all you know, while they pick your brains, she might be actually become your client or refer a friend to your business. Trust me it has happened with me and has worked wonders every time I took time to speak to somebody who wanted to know what I do and HOW I managed to build my business.

So, I coach entrepreneurs, actually mompreneurs to start their business by building their own website and managing the content on it. Before we start, here is the table of contents on how to become an Online Coach and grab freelance jobs working from home. One of the perks of becoming an online coach is that you can work remotely from the comfort of your home. Read this article where I explain how content writing and SEO can be a great source of work for mompreneurs.

Importance of Identifying your Niche as an Online Coach

In these challenging times, it is critical for online coaches to carve out their own niche in a crowded market and develop their personal brand around that niche.

The Current Market Situation Offers Many Opportunities

The prevailing Covid-19 pandemic situation is not going away any time soon. 

We’re going to be living with social distancing, face masks and hand sanitizers for a while. Words like “quarantine” and “pandemic” that were in the periphery of our vocabulary have become commonplace. 

Life as we know it has changed. Markets are slowing down, unemployment is high and morale is low. There is a lot of anxiety and fear among the population who are self-isolating at home and unable to visit family and friends. 

Homes are doing triple duty not just as places of rest but also as workplaces and schools. Working people are facing potential job loss or at the very least pay cuts and students are having to do without the social interaction with peers that is vital to their emotional growth.

Add to that the lack of physical exercise that comes with being housebound and worry about loved ones catching the virus, and you’ve got more mental and physical problems than most of us have known in recent years.

Being locked down during the pandemic has also allowed people time to sit back and take a good look at their career and life goals. They are now looking to change their current circumstances and redefine their future paths.

And with people spending more time at home hooked up to the net, the market for online coaching in India is growing by leaps and bounds.

Finding a Niche in a Burgeoning Online Coaching Market

This is the space and time where good online coaches can make a big difference to their clients’ lives.

But with so many companies and individuals vying for the same piece of the pie, there is a need to distinguish oneself from others. Generic messaging and a one-size-fits-all strategy are not going to help you do that.

If you already are an online coach or are considering online coaching as your career path, this is the best time to start thinking about creating your own personal brand. 

It is more important now than ever before to narrow your focus and find a niche that fits with your personal expertise, experience and coaching skills.

Sort Through the Clutter and Find a Suitable Niche

There are a number of sites where you could find lists of life coaching niches. You could start by browsing through those and familiarizing yourself with the various options.

The next step would be to look at your own personal and professional goals and identify the niche that you could contribute to the most and that most suits you.

If you are just starting out in online coaching, you would need to think deeply about who it is you want to help and what specific problem that you want to solve for them.

If you’re a well-entrenched online coach with multiple clients you could look at your current client list and try to identify one subset of clients you think you can help better than others or a certain kind of issue that you have more experience with.

Some Instances of Specific Coaching Niches

Here are some instances of niches that can be identified from broader areas of expertise.

If health and fitness is your area of expertise, instead of trying to cater to the general public, you could consider focusing on helping a specific age group improve their health through exercise and better dietary habits. Say, you’ve seen a recent trend of 40-60 year old middle- to top-level executives developing health problems due to work stress and lack of exercise. You could focus on just that market and make it your niche.

If career coaching is what you have experience with, you could focus on those who have recently lost their jobs and help them get back on their feet. Or perhaps you could even find a micro-niche by helping people write out better online resumes for their job search or by focusing on their interview skills.

If you are a family or parenting coach, you could focus on helping parents of teenagers deal with the changing education scenario and plan for a better future for their kids.

The Next Steps

Delivery Mechanism: Before you settle on a niche, you would also need to think about how you are going to deliver your services. Will you be able to conduct your sessions with clients through online and remote means? Or do you need a combination of physical presence and online methods to effectively deliver your service?

Program Design: Identifying a specific niche and delivery mechanism would make it easier for you to design your online coaching programs that you could market and sell through digital channels.

Messaging and Branding: After designing your programs, you would need to formulate your message and get it out in front of your prospective clients. The best way to do that is to position yourself as a thought leader in your chosen niche. Create a blog, vlog, or website and start populating it with your original ideas and promoting them through social media channels and online marketing.

“The Key to this Business is Personal Relationships” —Jerry Maguire (1996)

It is not imperative that you stick to the same niche throughout your career as an online coach. It may take some time and testing before you finally settle on a niche that works for you. If something is not working for you, you could change your focus until you find something that you and your clients are more comfortable with.

The main thing to remember is that you don’t need to be everything for everyone. Identify your niche and build your personal brand around it so people with a specific problem know where to find you.

After all, if there’s one thing to learn from the iconic rom-com of the 1990s Jerry Maguire, it is that building true relationships and adding real value to the lives of one’s clients is more important (and in the long term, more profitable) than chasing “the money”!

Your Personal Brand story for Online Coaching Success!

Everyone has a story. Everybody loves a story!

But, what is your story?

Stories craft an emotional context for people who need to locate themselves in a larger experience.

Nowadays storytelling is a la monde. The increasing number of brands and freelancers are resorting to the productive power of stories to transform their presence in the business world. 

Your presence is proclaimed by your personal brand – the metaphorical story that connects your presence with something very deep in your clients.

Anyone with good internet bandwidth and entrepreneurial spirit can build a business; consequently, they would need to confront more competition than they already face. The power of Personal Brand will serve you as your best insurance against business factors that are beyond your control. It differentiates you from your competitors.

Great stories happen to people, who wish to put novel ideas into the world, and are not afraid, to speak.  The magic of Marketing is no longer about the products that you produce, but of stories that you have to tell. 

Stories are the most powerful tool blessed in human communication. So how exactly will you welt it and utilise it to eternally engrave your story in this world?

Tell Stories of Personal Brand, NOT Product

When someone asks you “Why does your business exist?  

The answer should be a Story.

Simple stories are the best. Even science says so. We need simplicity. We need trust.

The first step in crafting an authentic personal brand story is by laying out the foundation- explaining the problem that you set out to solve.  

It is a misconception that building a personal brand means creating a persona. But a persona- by definition- is a façade. It fails to truly reflect who you are. Therefore it is inauthentic.

A great brand strategically and purposefully proclaims “who you are, what you stand for, and understands your marketplace.”

Like every great story, your personal brand story needs a body the solution– describing how you solved your problem. This echoes your skills, passions, values and beliefs. It will even act as credentials to your potential clients.

And the end of your crisp and inspiring story must be the beginning of the road to success and continuation.

If people feel connected to you, they will listen to you. But if your personal brand story can incite trust in their heart, they will do business with you. The goal of your personal story is to create that connection and to translucently communicate your vision with your customers.

Stories Build Online Coaching Business!

Everyone is in constant search of an expert who can share his or her insights with the audience. Having a strong personal brand is leverage to increase exposure and to be featured in media.

Your Personal Brand must precisely articulate your vision, mission, passion, and solution to problems. This will encourage other entrepreneurs and customers to see the value in connecting with your brand. It will act as a catalyst in promoting and increasing the visibility and exposure of your personal brand. Thus, your personal brand must make you a specialist in your industry, not a generalist. 

You must efficiently invest in crafting and maintaining your personal brand both online and offline and in attracting your target market with it. 

Not everyone is your ideal client.  Your website is your platform which you can own and control, to identify your specific target audience- who not only be a part of your story but will also buy that part. An optimally created website will aid your brand in building a sincere target audience as well as revenue for your personal brand.

Without a brand, your products will become a commodity that competes on price. And there will be always a new competitor who will beat your price. Therefore, your personal brand will also justify in charging premium value for your products and services.

Your products are the fruits of your personal brand story. When the customers purchase your products, they will feel as if they are buying a part of your story. When they own your story, they will trust your story and will spread your story by mouth.

And your story will be shared by mouth to mouth to mouth. Or by like to tweet to share.

Stories Offer Irresistible Offers!

Your personal brand story is a marketing tool for your business. Your story should be stimulant for your customers, one that inspires naturally.

When what you love to do and what you do best gets congruent with what your audience wants most, it will produce an irresistible offer. When an irresistible offer is born your personal brand story must persuasively and proficiently articulate it and your offer should follow for those interested in buying.

Your personal brand story must tell who you are and what you do in the simplest way possible. And your process, products, and service must deliver it to your target market. It must even promptly exert influence over any competitors or offers that promise the same result. Your offers must build a community of people. And your brand story or offers must influence a community of your target audience to be your assets. As you build your network of assets through the globe, you are increasing your exposure and trust which will reflect directly in your revenue and reputation.

Your personal brand story is a promise to your target clients. It is a promise to uphold the quality, consistency, competency, and reliability of your products or services. It is a story of success that you will promise to continue as long as your brand’s legacy exists. It is the story of authenticity. It a story that will make you the pioneer of your industry and that will extract the trust of your audience. It is the story that will aid you in craving your niche. You can get inspired by your mentor’s story, but never must you feign a story.

“Be yourself, everyone else is already taken!”

Oscar Wilde

Now, let us see how to build a portfolio for personal branding. Let’s assume that you are an artist rearing to go online and give a shout-out so that you become renowned in the online space.

How to build an Online Portfolio for Artists

You are an artist and it is your wish is to be the next big online influencer. You have dialed the number of the most reputed PR Company in your locality and they have promised you to make your dream a reality. They may offer you a big budget which may deplete your bank balance. 

When the initial burst of enthusiasm parches away from your artistic veins, you may feel dejected. And before renouncing the online world, what if we tell you that we can help you in creating a name in the digital world without hurting your pockets?

Astute and efficient manipulation of time, Social Media Platforms and Digital Marketing techniques will aid you in building a profitable online artiste persona. 

Your brand is your promise to your customers!

Clear insight in voicing your ideas, sagacious development of contents and consistent engagement with your target market will help you in building your Online Presence. 

The excellent articulation of ideas that you are proficient and passionate about, to your target audience, can help you in crafting a phenomenal online persona.

While curating your content you should focus on a theme that you are enthusiastic about and must present it on the digital world with an original and organic touch. Invest time and effort in seamlessly crafting content by studying the online trends using Google Trends. 

It is crucial to understand your target market and to build an online presence feeding them with ideas and contents that they would gladly devour. Your target customers are your potential clients who would presumably consume your contents, act as promoters or even buy from you. 

Cutting edge ideas or exceptional contents will not become fruitful if you are not investing time correctly in engaging with your target audience. You should invest in adopting the efficacious online strategy of “Hub and Spokes”. 

What exactly is the ‘Hub and Spokes’?!!

Your Website is the Hub that you need to activate by engaging in your Spokes – your Social Media Platforms– that act as a magnet in attracting traffic into your website. 

So how ‘Hub and Spokes’ will help you in building and maintaining a Digital Presence as an Artist-(e)?

Hub-Hub-Hurray!

Good art inspires people and a good artist should invest in a personal Website. 

You can build a decent website either by hosting one or by using free open-source content management systems like ‘WordPress’. It is cost-efficient and will aid you in promoting your brand. 

Your website is your artistic portfolio in the digital world.  Instead of creating an expensive website or posting photos of exotic places, every word, work, video and picture in it should depict your ideas, identity, achievements, goals, etc. 

Your website activates the eye of the Google that guides your prospectus clients to your website. And thus, you should make your website SERP-friendly (Search Engine Result Page) by giving your website either your name or names that are keyword-friendly. When your website makes it to page #1 of Google, it helps the customers to easily find you.You should also link your Blogs and other Social Media Platforms to your website. Your website and blogs must be SEO-friendly (Search Engine Optimisation).

If you are an artist, you can even sell your products on your websites. And for artistes, you can make the website as a portfolio in attracting clients that will help them to contact you for your next show booking.

Adopting astute marketing techniques of the digital world will aid an artiste in building and expanding their online presence as an artist. You can even go old school and promote your brand by collaborating with Local Media. A few sentences with some good images will be enough to boost your brand.

And do not go down in dumps if your first attempt fails. Keep working until it reflects in your bank account.

Let the ‘Spokes’ speak!

As an artist, the focal point in your digital presence is your website; but, not enough on its own. Any artist can build an online presence by optimally using diverse Social Media Platforms and utilizing them as a magnet in attracting and funneling potential traffic to the artist’s Website. 

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube play a tremendous role in influencing your online presence. These media are your spokes that funnels your traffic to your hub- your Website.

You can carve a niche and create a brand by efficiently study the niche that works with you and your competitors and consistently evolving and testing the latest trends. 

As an artist, you are your images. Post high-quality pictures in your Social Media Platforms and use the optimal amount of Hashtags in its description. The quality, but not the quantity, of Hashtags would aid your work to be seen by a wider audience. Use 5 to 10 Hashtags in each post and these Hashtags would direct your target audience to your Social Media pages or accounts. 

Virtual Networking has a tremendous influence on your online presence as an artist. Whether it is an art-loving influencer or an arts publication, a share or tweet on the right account can bring major visibility. Leverage your time by trying to collaborate or getting featured on a bigger platform and with a few clicks and tweets your visibility will be skyrocketed.

Tell stories rather than stand-alone works. Let your fans have a sneak peek behind the curtains, use creative captions and narratives. And every image you post must be artistic. These techniques would incite the interest of your crowd, who in return will promote your brand by sharing, liking, subscribing or re-tweeting. Be consistent in posting quality contents which would spike the curiosity of the traffic in learning more about the artist.

An online presence for visual artist includes promoting the art and the artiste. 

And there is no better platform, to connect with artists and art lovers, than YouTube– the world’s most popular video-sharing platform. In average, more than 1.5 billion people watch over an hour of content a day on YouTube.

With your Google account, you can set up a free YouTube channel in a few minutes. Take some time to show off your artistic abilities by creating a creative Channel name, icon, description, trailer, Banner art, etc. You should add URLs to your website and link other social media accounts to your channel.

Geo-tagging, grouping similar playlists, using SEO-friendly keywords, transcripts, contents and description can optimise your YouTube Channel. And it can help your channel to rank high on search engines and also to increase the number of views. Your videos and channels can generate income if it has reached 4000 hours of watch time and gained 1000 subscribers. You can monetize your account with numerous marketing strategies such as account ads, PPC (Pay Per Click), etc. 

Using a good camera, tripod, and basic audio-video editing software, any artist can create videos showcasing their talents, take tutorials or make ‘How-To’ videos. Track your progress using YouTube Analytics and engage your audience by creating quality content that could entertain your target demographics. These videos are easily embeddable on websites and can be shared on other social media sites. 

YouTube has boundless opportunities to market and grow your art. With the consistent posting of original content, you can build a strong Digital Presence as an Artist. 

Each element in your ‘Hub and Spokes’ must reflect your unique identity as an artist. Every post must bewitch your audience and they must become your ardent followers and customers. Manipulate the tools available on the internet to expand your digital presence. Be where your audience is and make sure to wine and dine them with quality content.