How to Get Coaching Clients on LinkedIn

How to Get Coaching Clients on LinkedIn
June 29, 2022
Table of Contents

There is no dearth of mediums a coach can use to market their services, with the intention of acquiring new coaching clients into their business. In the earlier days, marketing was largely done via print – by running ads on newspapers, magazines, brochures, or billboards. Then came the radio. And then television – with 30- to 60-second ad films & product placements in shows and movies. After all that, came the digital space – gutter ads on blogs & websites, pages and groups on Facebook, Google ads, running one’s own blog or vlog to share valuable content, running a business via Instagram, and so much more. The digital space has since then been evolving – and with metaverse now in the making, one can innovate in endless ways in order to market their services and acquire clients for their business.

Now, one medium is not better than the other (and the metaverse is only in its mere nascent stages), but in today’s day & age, the digital medium is most preferred, because that’s where most of us spend a large part of our day – whether it is for work, recreation, looking for information, or simply to pass the time. Not only that, the digital space is also one of the more cost-effective mediums and thus, great for anyone starting their own venture – for independent coaches and coaching businesses as well.

LinkedIn is a particularly effective way for coaches to get coaching clients. In times when ‘relationship marketing’ plays majorly into how an individual makes the decision to purchase products and services, LinkedIn allows coaches to build a solid ground to build a strong network, cultivate connections, and grow their business successfully. 

If this is something that interests you and you wish to understand how to get coaching clients on LinkedIn for yourself, there are essentially 3 major components you need to focus on:

1. Setup Your LinkedIn Profile

a. Optimise your profile

Your LinkedIn profile is what is going to help create the first impression about you in the mind of your prospective clients, so it is essential that you have everything right. Let’s begin with the URL – instead of settling for a generic and unmemorable profile number, ensure that it consists of your name (or business name) so that it represents you and can even be used in your coaching business cards & email signatures for additional visibility. 

Even more important than the URL is using the right keyword phrases on your profile. Think about what your ideal client could possibly be looking for when looking for the services of a coach such as yourself. If you’re a Leadership Coach, then having those keywords present in the headline of your profile is crucial. Not only that, utilising related keywords in the description section and explaining concisely how specifically you help your clients is going to help you be more discoverable to your ideal audience and communicate who you are and how you can help them most effectively. Your headline should be more functional than aspirational in tone and style. And a functional headline is essentially a mix of three vital components:

  1. Your expertise or specialisation
  2. Target audience 
  3. Customer pain and/or solution

An example of this could be the following: “Jane Doe, Career Coach | Helping graphic designers and artists find their dream jobs and the compensation they deserve”.

Apart from using coaching related keywords on your headline, make sure to keep your summary nice and concise – people have short attention spans, so keep the introduction light and interesting, followed by highlighting the most important parts of your career to give people an idea of what to expect from you.

b. Choose the right pictures

If it is possible for you, investing in having a few professional headshots done by a photographer in a few different outfits and settings may serve you well in the long run. Using selfies or blurry shots taken from a phone do not help present a professional front at a platform where people mean business. And by getting some professional headshots taken, you can use them not just on your LinkedIn, but also on any other platform (like Instagram or Facebook) as well as on your website which are frequented by your prospective clients visit. 

Bonus tip: Most smartphones these days come with stellar built-in cameras. If you don’t want to shell out too much out of your pockets for headshots, all you need is a friend who understands basic angles and aesthetics, natural lighting, a neutral background, and some basic photo editing skills and you’re all set!

2. Share Valuable Content

a. Make impactful content

Creating and sharing relevant content is perhaps one of the best ways to connect with your ideal audience. And LinkedIn makes it very easy to do so with their in-built blog and newsletter features. LinkedIn Pulse is not only an excellent tool for creating content that your audience could find valuable, it also has a higher search engine ranking on Google and a good probability of going beyond the reach of your own immediate circle, thus enabling more prospects to discover you through your educational content. 

Then there’s InMail – LinkedIn’s own in-built newsletter sharing functionality – that you can publish via your own LinkedIn profile or through that of your coaching business’ page. According to data, the average response rate of LinkedIn InMail is 85% – 3 times higher than traditional e-mail! The statistics are encouraging for an independent coach who wishes to reach out personally to their ideal client to not just inform them of their services but also to start conversations and built relationships.

Apart from Pulse & InMail, you can also share small titbits of your thought process and opinions as a simple post. To make them a bit more visually appealing, you can even take the help of free software like Canva to convey ideas visually to your audience that can help showcase your expertise in creative ways!

Let your brand speak for you

Learn everything you need to know about branding in our ‘Branding for Coaches’ Toolkit!

b. Share testimonials

A very important part of client acquisition is showing social proof. No matter how much valuable and informative content you are sharing on the platform, to ultimately get prospects to trust you enough to pay you for your services, feedback and testimonials from your previous clients are a big piece of the puzzle. 

So, for every client you work with, make it a point to collect feedback as well as a testimonial (if you can get a video testimonial, nothing like it!) – and, with due permission from them, use it to showcase your success having coached your clients with their specific issues and problems. One video testimonial can be utilised in multiple ways – by sharing the entire video as is, or by sharing bits of the video to create shorter, shareable bite-sized videos, and by extracting multiple quotes where the client has mentioned what they have liked about working with you and creating simple text-based creatives that can be shared across weeks.

3. Connect with Prospects

a. Send invites on a regular basis

Now, this is not to say that you need to spam people and connect with anyone and everyone on the platform. But LinkedIn is, after all, all about growing your professional network – the more people there are in your circle, the easier it becomes to engage with them and convey the value that you can provide. You could be saying the wisest of things but if they are not going to the right audience who is able to relate to it (or worse, going to negligent audience), then you might as well be wasting effort talking to a wall. So, looking for your target clientele and making a request to connect with them is an easy way to ensure that the value that you are providing is falling on the right set of ears. Sending about 5-10 invites per week could be a potential sweet spot to help you gradually and intentionally grow your network, but that number could vary from person to person.

b. Join groups/association

If you’ve ever wondered how to get coaching clients on LinkedIn, then groups are a great way to get access to groups of people who are in the same line of work as you or have the same interests as you. Commonality is a great breeding ground for great conversations and connections. You can choose to be part of several types of groups – an interest group solely with the purpose of learning and connecting with likeminded people, or a group where you can find people who are in your field (aka your competitors) and see what is new and keep yourself updated, or a niche group where you can find your target clientele.

c. Engage in conversations

It is not enough to just join groups if you’re not going to actively participate in them. These groups are a way to showcase your expertise to others, which also allows them to learn more about your specialisation and services. 

So, ask questions to not just gain knowledge and information but to start a conversation – this helps many people who may be having the same doubt in their mind but aren’t asking them, thus adding a lot of value to the entire space. 

When you see others posting questions or engaging in discussions, offer your point of view freely as well – you don’t need to go into the depths of everything you have to offer, but sharing bits and pieces helps others and lets them know that you are knowledgeable and are adding value to their time spent on the platform. People tend to remember you if you engage in the platform with the intention of providing value to others and are active & consistent. 

This enables you to grow connections and deepen them organically on a regular basis, so that when the time comes when someone is looking for the kind of services/coaching you provide, you are the one they pick first because you have spent all this time building a relationship with them!

FAQ

1. How do you attract clients on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is an excellent platform to help build a network of potential clients – especially for coaches and coaching businesses. If you have ever asked yourself how to get coaching clients from LinkedIn, these are the three major components to ensure you are on the right path:

  1. Optimise your profile with the right keywords, terminologies, and professional photos. Convey your expertise and specialisation smartly to ensure you are discoverable to your potential clients who are looking for coaches like yourself on the platform.
  2. Share relevant content that helps you stand out in the sea of coaches out there. Instead of thinking of ways to get clients to buy into your services, think of how you can add value to your prospects’ lives by sharing bits & pieces of your knowledge and expertise. If you do this on a consistent basis, eventually you will see your prospects converting to paying clients!
  3. Expand your network – there is no use sharing all that valuable content if you don’t have relevant people consuming it and utilising it. So, spend time each week sending out invites to potential prospects and growing your network so that you have a considerable pool of leads that you are sharing your content with. Joining groups is also a great way to grow your network.

About Simply.Coach

Simply.Coach is an enterprise-grade coaching software designed to be used by individual coaches and coaching businesses. Trusted by ICF-accredited and EMCC-credentialed coaches worldwide, Simply.Coach is on a mission to elevate the experience and process of coaching with technology-led tools and solutions.  

About the author
Content Marketing Manager @Simply.Coach

Ipsita Nayak is a full-time writer-editor-content strategist and a part-time NLP coach & yoga teacher. She believes conventions are overrated, has a disproportionate need for solo time over social time, and loves a good mix of sci-fi and trashy TV in her free time!

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