Episode 272 – Before You Create Your Coaching Website Do These 3 Things
https://prosperouscoachblog.com/ep-272-before-you-create-your-coaching-website-do-these-3-things/
About 3x a week a new coach reaches out to me. They've been referred to my podcast by another coach — thank you! Or they’ve seen a LinkedIn post or Googled for "coaching niche", browsed my website then filled out the application on my VIP Mentoring page. That’s a customer journey that works!
They tell me:
“I don't know my coaching niche or target audience yet but I’m working on my website, posting on socials, and developing coaching programs.”
And I think ... WAY TOO SOON!
I get it. When you finish coach training there's this emotional rush to get a website up and do all the things online.
But it will be a false start and likely mean doing everything over, because the very 1st step for everything in your coaching business is nailing down a viable audience and niche. Anything you do before that isn’t going to be effective.
Let me help you think differently about the goal of your website.
Create the Foundation of Your Coaching Business Before Your Website
- Before you hire a designer …
- Or before you decide to buy a template and do your website yourself …
- Or, before you ask your kid or best friend's cousin to slap up a website for you …
First do these 3 things to create a solid foundation for your coaching business:
1. Choose your viable target audience. Listen to episode 266.
2. Conduct research to understand their big problems on the way to a big goal. Listen to episode 22.
3. Develop your customer journey to nurture and enroll ideal clients. Listen to episode 236.
Look, I am not a web designer but, as an international business mentor for coaches with 20+ years of experience, I’m an expert at messaging.
Messaging is Everything You Do to Attract Paying Coaching Clients
Anything you convey through words to your target audience to build a relationship of trust and attract them to hire you is messaing. That includes:
· Social profiles and posts
· Articles, blogs, podcasts, videos
· And, yes — web copy
Here's the thing ... the people you're going to serve — your target audience are at the CENTER of your coaching business.
Their specific goals and the specific problems in the way are where YOU come in. Transformative coaching can't happen without the coachee — the person you serve.
And you need to stand out in the crowd of all coaches and other services providers to grab attention. That’s what narrowing your audience and niche does for you.
Your coaching website might be your ideal client’s first connection with you. So why build a generic coaching website? There’s no good reason I can think of.
Look, I get it. The target audience and coaching niche decision are hard. Why else would I get so many coaches buying my Nail Your Niche strategy session. It's not all I do to help my clients succeed but it is the first decision and the front door of my house (my website) for many of my clients.
That target audience and niche decision becomes your true north for your business. If you need to nail this down still, whether you have or have not yet created your coaching website, let’s have a Nail Your Niche strategy session and get that part settled in a strategic way.
Isn’t a Coaching Website an Online Brochure About Coaching?
Uh, no.
When I started as a coach, I thought the whole point of the website was to talk all about me and the wonders of coaching. You too?
I paid for and launched 3 DUD websites over 2 years before I finally had a client-winning website. I’m not kidding. The first 3 failed utterly.
And that’s because I created those websites before I was crystal clear on my target audience and niche. Big mistake.
A client-winning website does 4 things really well:
1. Speaks TO your audience in words that are relevant to them.
2. Shows you understand their specific goals and BIG problems in their way.
3. Builds a relationship of trust with ideal clients.
4. Provides clear next steps for them to take when they are ready.
Very few coaches know how to create a client-winning website straight out of coach training.
The truth is very few web designers even know how to help you attract clients with your website. They know design. They know templates. A few of them can code to customize a site.
But most web designers do not know the first thing about attracting clients through messaging or having the right conversion processes at the right time.
I wouldn’t know that myself except that I’m a TEACHER ARCHETYPE and I tend to study my mistakes and the best solutions and then create step-by-step guides for my VIP clients.
Creating your website before you understand well WHO you serve and the BIG PROBLEM you help them solve is like building a house without a foundation on land you don't own!
It's like buying a car before you can see over the steering wheel.!
Developmentally, it's better for you to wait until your coaching business has a solid foundation.
Don’t get me wrong, I do think it is worthwhile to hire a professional web designer to create your coaching business website. But you need to get all the messaging right and all the decisions made to GUIDE YOUR DESIGNER.
This is one of the steps I take my VIP clients through in my 5-month Coaching Business Breakthrough mentoring program. Together, my ideal clients and I make all the decisions, create all the messaging and manage the web design process with the designer rather than letting the designer do what they want to do.
Your website should be command central for your ideal clients. It can be an incredible tool if it's created right. You can do this!
Blessings!
Rhonda Hess
International Business Mentor for Coaches at Prosperous Coach