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How To Start An Online Coaching Business (Complete Guide)

ByAntony C.
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Whether you’re a life coach, a financial guru, a tech expert or a spiritual teacher, having an online coaching business is essential.

Knowing the steps, the niche you want to be in, as well as having the right tools to help you conduct your online coaching are essential if you want to monetize your online coaching business.

Of course, you’ll have to decide on a name, but we’ll outline the steps to start an online coaching business even if you have little to no experience.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

How To Start Your Own Online Coaching Business

Developing a model for a successful online coaching business isn’t difficult but there are many components involved. When done correctly, it can become passive money generating machine.

When starting a coaching business, it will be much easier if you are smaller or as an individuated, but regardless of the size of your business, creating and selling your service on a right platform is the key to succeeding and getting new clients.

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1. Decide on a Name

The very first and most important thing is to decide on a name for your coaching business. This is going to be your brand, so it should be something catchy and memorable. But, it should also be meaningful, simple and convey the company’s inherent message.

However, you want to guarantee the name is available and that no one else has copyrighted it. This means checking it against trademark databases and seeing if the domain name is free. You also want to consider marketing, promotion and advertising.

2. Legal Structure

How you wish to setup the structure for your online business is going to determine how you register with the state (or even if you need to). While it’s strongly advisable that you seek guidance from an attorney, the following list contains the five most common types of business structures:

  • Sole Proprietor: This means the owner of the business and the business itself are the same person under the law. This person is responsible and liable for all obligations and debts. This is the simplest and most inexpensive to establish, with easy setup and operations.
  • Partnership: In legalese, this illustrates an agreement between two or more individuals owning the company as a group. They share the profits and losses and are jointly liable for obligations and debts.
  • Limited Liability (LLC): As the name suggests, this legal structure gives cover to the owner in terms of liability. People aren’t personally responsible for the obligations and debts, which provides management flexibility and taxation perks. However, not every state allows this.
  • C Corporation: A structure such as this completely separates itself from the owners. It has its own tax ID with the potential for shareholders. While this does offer the owners limited liability, it is subject to double taxation. Plus, it removes certain decision-making powers from the owners and puts it in the hands of shareholders.
  • S Corporation: Along with limited liability, an S Corporation structure allows owners to pass their income through personal income tax returns. This helps to skirt double taxation but the shareholder limitation does factor in here.

3. Develop a Business Plan

Any coaching business needs to have a plan. Without it, everything will be random with surprise expenses coming up at every turn. Having a business plan gives you the scope of your market supported by your strategy. It also gives a roadmap with a solid direction while also forcing you to consider funding. The items listed below are some points to include in a cohesive business plan:

  • Company Overview: Tells the history of your coaching business, the industry of operation and the milestones reached (or hope to reach).
  • Executive Summary: One paragraph that describes the entire business plan with an outline of key details for company operations.
  • Financial Plan: Of every point on this list, you should definitely include a financial plan. This will flesh out things like startup costs, operations expenses, revenue generation, potential sales and fund raising over the next five years.
  • Plan of Operations: List the processes you’ll use for daily operations. This includes staffing, technology and in-house procedures. However, you also want to mention a timeline you project for growth, displaying potential milestones within a certain number of years.
  • Marketing Plan: Here you’ll determine the exact products and/or services you’ll offer as well a pricing, business location and other methods for promotion.
  • Industry Analysis: Document information about the industry in which you coaching. This means displaying the size of the field, the trends that affect it and marketing research.
  • Competitor Analysis: List direct and indirect competitors who are involved in the exact same niche as your company. Then, follow it with your ideas to build advantage over competitors and the steps you will take to achieve that “edge.”
  • Consumer Analysis: Detail who your target demographic is along with the ideal customers, clients and consumers you wish to attract. This should include things like gender, age, race, location, education and income bracket.
  • Management Team: If there are going to be many people helping you run this online business, then you’ll want to list the name of each team member. Also, mention their qualifications and expertise.

4. Licenses, Permits and Insurance

Every city, county and state has specific requirements for registration, licensing and permits. While this mostly relies on the number of employees and the type of industry, it’s important to register according to local regulations.

This means you may need to get a general business license along with sales tax and zoning permits. But, this is going to depend on if you’re doing this solo and if you’re going to have a brick-and-mortar location. Once registered with the state, you’ll receive an official Articles of Incorporation.

The same considerations are true when getting insurance for your coaching business. Those companies with both physical and virtual locations will require insurance that covers general liability, worker’s compensation and the property. However, if it’s only online, then these might be spurious. In this case, you’ll need business interruption and professional liability.

5. Financial Foundations

Once you have your business plan in place, you must have a solid footing in terms of funding and finances. This may mean taking out a bank loan, using your credit card, finding angel investors or signing up for crowd source funding, such as Kickstarter, Patreon or GoFundMe.

When getting money together, consider expenses. This will include payroll, utilities, equipment rentals, marketing/advertising and the cost for the location, if you’re having one. Ergo, estimate that you’ll require five to 10 percent more than the projected expenses. This will keep you covered and take care of unexpected eventualities.

Pricing

This also means you should set prices for your services and this will rely on several factors. Least of which is your experience and the desirability of the services/products. The best way to do this is to evaluate what your direct competitors are charging.

Because you’re starting out, you want to gain the most income while keeping costs down. However, you also want to attract as much new business as possible. Therefore, it may be a good idea to offer some free sample services or information that can give potential clients an idea of what you and your company is about.

Credit Cards and Bank Accounts

Another component to finances is having a credit card and a business bank account. Establish this in the business’s name by using the company’s Articles of Incorporation, proof of address, identification cards and business registration information for your state.

Even though the bank may supply you with a credit card in conjunction with your account, it’s a good idea to get a separate one from a different company. Your bank should be able to supply you with such application forms. However, you can go directly to the company with which you wish to align.

Having a credit card in this way means you’ll build up some credit history, which will be important for securing loans and obtaining lines of credit in the future.

6. Creating an Online Presence

Now that you have everything in place, it’s time to setup shop. Depending on the size of your company and budget, you could create a website or blog. But, this will take internet knowhow that includes webmaster knowledge along with things like SEO, HTML and design.

But, if you’re starting from the ground up, then you may want to go with a platform designed to attract and build a paid community for your coaching services.

If you are looking to create an mobile App type of community where you can provide your service on the go, these two platforms mentioned below are some of the easiest and most popular to come by:

  • Passion: Powerful self-branded App with push notification designed for maximum engagement between you and your users, as well as between your users with inbuild leaderboard system.
  • Mighty Networks: If your mission is to build a community of likeminded individuals, then Mighty Networks will provide the ultimate platform. This is an all-encompassing site that lets you create courses or just a paid community to offer your products and services.

If you are looking to create an all-rounded platform you may wana to choose between these two all-in-one platforms.

  • LearnWorlds: In the event your company wants to focus on direct coaching of customers, LearnWorlds is ideal. You can set things up for one-on-one interaction with each person hiring the services and purchasing the products you offer.
  • Podia: This is a free way to build up membership and clientele for your products and services in connection with your website. They help you feature the things you offer while generating profits. It adds a sleek and clean professionalism to your coaching business too.

Otherwise, you can check out this article where we rank and list the best online course platform you can create and sell your online coaching services.

7. Devise an Advertising/Marketing Strategy

After you setup your interactive platform, you then want to create marketing and advertising materials. This means having some kind of website, even if you don’t do your coaching directly from it. It will make you searchable through places like Bing, Google and Duck-Duck-Go.

You can also put your prices and services here along with contact information, existing customer reviews and a tidbit about the company’s history. The look and feel of it should project everything laid out in your business plan.

The Logo

This means you should spend a little time crafting your logo. You want this to be simple but reflect the name and purpose of the company. Remember, the logo will appear on business cards, the website, social media accounts and other stationery.

Social Media

Of course, the most important component to having an online coaching business is getting your brand out into the ether. So, you should also be on as many social media networks as possible. Things like Twitter, Gab, Facebook, LinkedIn and etc. will be vital here.

Other Promotions

If your coaching business is new on the scene, advertising and promotion costs will have to start as low as possible. Therefore, you want to find free places to announce your services and products. Things like Craigslist, Eventful and signing onto coaching database listings are just some suggestions.

But, in the event you have a larger budget, you can sign up with places like Google AdWords. However, consider attending conventions and local events related to your field. This way you can develop in-person relationships via networking.

This few listed are just few of the many unconventional but effective ways to promote your business online.

8. Register with the IRS

This step is only for those coaching firms with a large employee base with massive revenue and a legal structure featuring limited liability. In some cases, the bank will not open an account for your business until you have an Employer Identification Number (EIN).

Generally, sole proprietors won’t need to do this because it’s not likely you’ll generate enough to qualify for federal income taxes. However, your immediate locale may require that you have a tax ID number for the state or county. Understand what the laws are in your area about taxes and what limits you have to reach to pay federal ones.

9. Equipment and Software

Depending on what you’re providing to the public, you must ensure you have the right equipment and software to run your business right. To start, you may only need internet, a computer and a phone as well as a webcam and microphone. If your business involves a lot of typing, get a durable keyboard too.

However, you may want software as well. Accounting, word processing, spreadsheets and databases are ideal. As your company and client base grows, you may want to invest in video editing software and other website programs like customer relationship management systems.

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Antony C., Founder of IncomeBuddies.com.
Antony C.
Founder & Financial Writer at Income Buddies | Website | Posts by Author

Antony C. is a dividend investor with over 15+ years of investing experience. He’s also the book author of “Start Small, Dream Big“, certified PMP® holder and founder of IncomeBuddies.com (IB). At IB, he share his personal journey and expertise on growing passive income through dividend investing and building online business. Antony has been featured in global news outlet including Yahoo Finance, Nasdaq and Non Fiction Author Association (NFAA).

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