When you decided to work as a business coach, you made that choice because you wanted to help people. The idea was never to spend all day long marketing your services – it was to give people the tools, confidence and accountability frameworks they need so they can realize their business dreams and unlock their potential.

But now you find that you spend a lot of time promoting your expertise so you can attract clients.

You need to speed up the marketing and sales cycle so that you can add new clients without it occupying too much of the time you spend coaching. One of the best ways to do that is to share some of your expertise for free online.

Giving away advice can boost your appeal

Giving away your wisdom may seem counterintuitive. You might wonder why anyone would pay for your coaching services if they can get the same information online free of charge. But that’s the wrong way of looking at things.

Your clients come for your customized advice on their specific companies and personal situations, but first they need to choose whom to consult. Your free content helps establish you as a thought leader and trusted source of information, increasing the chances that a lead will choose to use your services.

There are a number of ways of sharing content online, like social media videos, blog posts, guest posts on coaching websites and/or business leadership publications, podcasts and webinars. Each one is beneficial, but creating an online course has stand-out advantages. 

Over the last couple of years, the general public has become increasingly used to e-learning, and online courses gained people’s trust and approval. In one indication of their rising acceptance, 77% of students surveyed said they think that online learning is as or more attractive than on-campus learning. It’s a market that’s predicted to grow to $325 billion by 2025, so this is a good time to tap into it.

Sharing expertise as free online courses nurtures leads

A free online course is an excellent way to nurture your relationship with potential clients. This lead nurturing is effective for marketing in general, with 66% of marketers saying that they see a measurable difference in conversions from nurtured leads in contrast with non-nurtured leads, but it’s especially important in the coaching sector, where a positive trust relationship between client and coach is crucial.

For example, you could create a short self-help course for small business owners who want to tap into a growth mindset, or build a guide for aspiring business coaches to deliver excellence. The latter establishes you as a leader within your field, generating trust from potential clients who want to go to the best.

A multi-session online course can generate a closer link with leads than blog posts. It gives you a better opportunity to demonstrate your coaching style and prove your empathy. Learning Management Systems (LMS) like Moodle make it easy to create an evergreen central learning space that delivers all the resources and information you wish to share.

By providing instant access to videos and written content, packaged as a learning journey in a single location, you can quickly onboard new clients, and then track who consumes your content, which lessons are viewed the most often, how many people complete your course, and other data points that help you refine your content to be even more effective. A platform like Moodle that integrates with your CRM also assists you to follow up on leads, tracking them through your marketing and sales funnel.

Live online interaction makes a personal connection at scale

You’ll deliver even more value if you incorporate engaging and interactive live classes into your online course. ClickMeeting integrates with Moodle to help you create a seamless mix of prerecorded and live lessons, or offer a live class as a bonus to leads who’ve already completed your online course, in order to further nurture warm leads.

A live class boosts your connection with a potential client even more, and can be seen as an intermediate step between a prerecorded course and an in-person, one-on-one meeting.

Advanced features like built-in registration tools, automated follow-ups and direct question-and-answer chat mean that you can easily onboard participants, gather their details, and interact with them during and after the session. Seeing and hearing you live bolsters a lead’s feeling of trust towards you.

Self-service educational content helps to disqualify leads

No, your lead nurture process isn’t only about maximizing sales – it’s about maximizing fit. Disqualifying leads who are unlikely to enjoy much value from your coaching business might sound scary, but it’s actually very good for you.

When you successfully disqualify leads, you save time, money, and energy that you would otherwise have spent attempting to nurture a client who wouldn’t have converted anyway. In fact, the sooner you can remove these leads, the better.

Disqualifying leads also rescues you from individuals who do convert to paying clients, but aren’t really ready for coaching. These are the clients who won’t put in the necessary work to make the relationship succeed, then complain all over social media that your coaching wasn’t successful, dragging down your reputation.

An online course offers you the opportunity to gently educate potential clients out of any misconceptions they may have about business coaching, such as someone looking for a quick fix who thinks that coaching is a one-and-done experience. It’s a great way to deliver value to those leads who think they want a business coach, but really just need some guidance and wisdom. You’ll be able to correct their assumptions without having to spend time explaining exactly why a long-term coach is not what they need.

Good business for business coaches

Sharing your business coaching wisdom for free can be one of the best ways to encourage suitable leads to convert to loyal customers, while also discouraging disastrous clients. With a free online course that integrates with live webinars and measures interactions, you can nurture new clients, track leads through your sales funnel, and begin forging a trust relationship with clients who are primed to appreciate your services and will be loyal and enthusiastic promoters for you in the long term.