How to start an online coaching business, step by step

To start an online coaching business, decide who you help and with what problem, make one clear offer, set a price, and find where those people already ask questions online. Then put up a simple page that says what you do, add a way to book and pay, and get your first clients from real conversations. Logos, funnels and courses can all wait.

That's the order I'd do it in, and below I'll take you through each step with a made-up coach so you can see what it looks like in practice.

Why starting online feels harder than it should

If you've been looking into this for a while, you've probably got a head full of advice. You've been told to build your brand, grow your Instagram, make a free course, set up an email funnel and get a proper logo done. It's a lot, and none of it tells you what to do first.

It's not your fault. A lot of that advice comes from people selling the tools or the courses for each bit. But you are the one who has to decide the order.

I'll be honest about my own start. When I first went out on my own, I thought my experience and my degree were enough. They weren't. I had nobody asking me the right questions, and I should have put some paid help on a credit card. It would have saved me about a year. So if this post asks you awkward questions, that's on purpose.

Meet Priya (she's made up)

Priya is a nurse who spent twelve years on hospital wards and five years as a ward manager. She's done a coaching course and wants to coach online, part time at first, while she keeps some shifts going. Like her, everything about her business below is made up.

Step 1: decide who you help and with what problem

Not "anyone who wants to grow". One type of person, with one problem they'd recognise.

Priya thinks about who used to come to her for advice. It was always newly promoted nurses who'd gone from being great on the ward to suddenly managing their old friends. They felt like a fraud, they struggled to tell people what to do, and they were thinking about stepping back down.

So that's her person and her problem. Newly promoted nurse managers who feel out of their depth managing people they used to work alongside.

If you can help several groups and can't pick, start with the group you understand best, the people who already come to you for advice without being asked.

Step 2: make one offer

One offer. Not three tiers, not a membership and a course and one-to-one. One thing someone can say yes to.

Priya's is 8 weeks of one-to-one coaching on video, with six sessions of an hour and messages between sessions on weekdays. It's built around the first few months in a new management job.

Later on she might want a group version, so several new managers can learn from each other. That's a good next step once she's sold the one-to-one version a few times and knows what people ask for. When she gets there, how to build a group coaching program covers it.

Step 3: set a price

Pick a number and write it down. You can change it later.

Priya picks £600 for the eight weeks, or two payments of £300. That's a made-up example, not a number I'm telling you to charge.

Then decide whether to show it. When we scored 10,954 coaching websites, 82% showed no price at all. Of the sites that scored well, 65% showed one. I'm not saying a price makes a site good, but it's worth thinking about which group you'd rather look like. Coaching pricing goes through both choices properly.

Step 4: write a one-page plan

Before you spend a penny, put it all on one page. Who, what problem, the offer, the price, how many clients you need for the money you want, where they'll come from, and what it'll cost you to run.

Priya does the sum. She wants £1,200 a month from coaching to start with. At £600 a client, that's two new clients a month. Seeing it written down tells her this is doable part time, and it tells her she needs to be having enough conversations to find two people a month.

A coaching business plan shows a full one-page plan for another made-up coach, with every line filled in.

Step 5: sort out the boring bits

This isn't legal or tax advice, and the rules depend on where you live, so check them for your own country. But there are a few things to look at early.

In the UK, the government says you must register for Self Assessment as a sole trader if you earn more than £1,000 from self-employment in a tax year. In the US, the Small Business Administration says you're automatically a sole proprietorship if you do business activities and don't register as anything else, and that you can be held personally liable for the business's debts.

You'll also want a written agreement with each client, saying what's included, what happens with missed sessions, and how payment works. The coaching contract template has an example you can adapt. And check what insurance you need where you are.

Step 6: find where your buyers already ask questions

This is the bit people skip, and it's where your clients are.

Your buyers are already online, asking questions about their problem. Your job is to find out where. It might be Facebook groups, Reddit threads, forums, LinkedIn, or the comments under certain YouTube videos. For me, I run a Facebook ad because my buyers ask their questions on Facebook, so that's where I go.

Priya searches Facebook for groups for nurses and new managers. She finds a couple of big ones and a busy Reddit thread where nurses talk about being promoted. She reads for a week before she says anything. She writes down the exact words people use. "I feel like a fraud." "My old friends won't listen to me now." "Nobody trained me for this."

Those words go straight onto her page in the next step.

Step 7: put up a simple page

You don't need a full website to start. I mean that, and getting coaching clients without a website shows how people do it. A website can be a big help, though, and it comes down to what your buyers expect. If they expect to look you up before they talk to you, give them something to find.

At the start, one page is enough. It needs to say who it's for, what problem you help with, what changes, a bit about you, any proof you've got, the price, and how to book. In that order, near enough.

Remember that 86% of coaching websites can't be understood by a stranger in five seconds. A simple page that's clear will do better than a beautiful one that talks about "reaching your potential". Priya's page opens with: "Coaching for newly promoted nurse managers who feel out of their depth. In 8 weeks you'll know how to lead the team you used to work in."

Step 8: add a way to book and pay

Keep it simple. A free calendar booking link so people can pick a time for a short call, a video call tool you're comfortable with, and a way to take payment, like a payment link or a bank transfer with an invoice.

Test it yourself. Book a call with yourself, pay yourself a pound, check the emails arrive. You'd be surprised how many booking links lead nowhere.

Step 9: get your first clients from conversations

This is the step that actually makes money, and it's the one you can start today, even before the page is finished.

My best clients have always come from taking people offline for a real conversation, sometimes even before a discovery call. I don't want people to feel like they're in a process. So when Priya answers a question in one of those groups and someone replies saying it really helped, she messages them, asks how they're getting on, and offers a chat if they'd like one. No pitch in the first message.

What she doesn't do is send scripted messages to strangers. I can't stand the LinkedIn messages that drop in your name, your town and your job title scraped off your profile. It's ugly, and people can tell. And on the call, she doesn't open with "what's your biggest challenge?" When a coach asks me that, I'm looking for the exit. She asks about their actual situation, the ward, the team, the friend who won't take instructions from her now.

One more thing I learned the hard way. When I sold high-value work, what lost me sales was giving advice on the call. The questions should feel like help, so the person thinks "I hadn't thought of that", but the answers come once they've signed up.

If you've got no testimonials yet and you're worried nobody will trust you, getting your first coaching client with no proof is written for exactly that.

What happens if you start an online coaching business in the wrong order?

If you start with the logo and the Instagram grid, you can spend six months building something and still have nobody to sell to, and by then you're tired, out of pocket and wondering if coaching works at all.

If you go in this order, the worst case is you have a few conversations and find out your offer needs changing. That's cheap to fix. Once you've got clients coming in, how to get coaching clients shows what the data says about getting more of them.

Questions coaches ask about this

The figures here come from our own corpus of 10,954 scored coaching websites and 918 mapped coaching markets. How we built and scored it.

Read next

• Group coaching program: when it works and how to build one
• Life coach rates: should you show your prices?
• Coaching business plan: a one-page example you can copy