5 Steps to Becoming a Life Coach

Love helping people? Are you amazing at listeningandgiving useful advice? Do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur? You may just be an excellent life coach in the making, friend.

In general, a life coach guides and advises others with their life decisions, whether that involves their career, education, personal development, or a more specific problem. Life coaches help clients identify obstacles in their way so that they can plan a path to reach their goals.

Does becoming a life coach sound perfect for you? Then let’s talk about the steps you can take toward your new career!

Nail down your niche

If you couldn’t tell by our broad definition of what a life coach does in the introduction, coaching is a big field. There are lots of ways you can serve others as a life coach, which is why it’s so important to figure out your niche at the beginning.

To start nailing down your niche, think about these questions:

Who do you want to serve as a life coach?
What expertise or experiences do you have that will help you as a coach?
How do you already help the people in your life, and with what struggles or topics?

If you’ve launched your own small biz, maybe you can coach other entrepreneurs. If you’re a fitness instructor or nutritionist, maybe you can focus on wellness.

Do some online digging to find life coaches near you or in your professional circles, if you need a little inspiration. You’ll probably find that most life coaches focus on professional or personal development, health and wellness, or family and romantic relationships.

You don’t have to focus on just one of those areas, of course! But knowing what kind of niche you’ll serve will help you take the next steps in becoming a life coach.

Think about your training options

You have a niche and idea of what you’d like to do as a coach. Now you’re ready to decide how you’d like to get trained and/or certified.

Pro tip: You’re not required to earn a specific degree or be certified by an organization to become a life coach.

However, getting certified by a professional coaching organization is worth looking into. Certification boosts your cred and shows potential clients that you’re serious about your profession. You’ll also learn a lot about being a life coach and running your own biz.

The International Coaching Federation is probably the most commonly known coaching organization around. They set the standards and ethical guidelines for the industry, and they also offer three different paths toward earning your credentials. These paths will vary based on cost and time taken to complete, so consider what you can invest before picking one.

Set up your biz

We’ve come to our favoritestep out of the entire process: setting up your business!

Remember, you’re not just becoming a life coach. You’re also becoming a small business owner, entrepreneur, boss babe, whatever you wanna call it. That means you gotta take care of all the not-so-fun tasks that’ll set your new business on the right path from the start.

Starting a business is a huge task with a lot of moving parts. It helps to break the process down into more manageable chunks, which we’ve done for you in this blog already. But let’s recap the steps here:

Write a business plan that outlines your finances, services, any roles you’ll want to hire employees for, insurance needs, whether you want to rent an office space — all that good stuff.

Apply for an Employer Identification Number, or an EIN. We share everything you need to know about  how to get an EIN in case you need it.

File your state’s LLC after you get your EIN. We recommend looking over our blog on  knowing when you need an LLC first.

Research local business licenses. No two states are alike when it comes to LLC applications and local business licenses, so don’t skip this step!

Open a business bank account. It’s a good idea to keep your personal finances separate from your biz finances.

Think about patenting, copyrighting, or trademarking your stuff if appropriate.

Protect yourself with coaching contracts. Like we said, a lot goes into starting a business! You have to cover your booty legally from bad clients or total curveballs like the COVID-19 pandemic. Luckily, we have a  Coaching Contract Template specifically designed just for you.

Once your biz is rock solid and ready to go, it’s time to go public.

Create your online presence

If you’re providing life coaching services virtually, it’s extremely important you set up a great online presence from the beginning!

Start with a website that clearlyexplains what services you offer (and what they cost), who you serve, and who you are. Do you offer in-person sessions, virtual sessions, or both? What are your credentials and experience? How can people contact you?

In addition to those marketing and branding must-haves, you also wanna make sure your website is not a liability to your biz. Don’t forget the following things that’ll protect you:

A privacy policy that covers international privacy and data laws (which ours does)
Terms and conditions that tell people how they can share or reuse your site’s content
A refund policy to save you and your clients time and frustration

From there, you can set up business accounts on social media and plan to update them regularly. Different platforms will help you reach different segments of your target audience; for example, you’ll probably find more clients as a wellness coach on Instagram and professional development clients on LinkedIn.

Spread the word and get to work!

Congrats! You’ve made it to the last step of becoming a life coach. You’re ready to get the word out and tell everyone you know about your brand new venture.

There are lots of ways to spread the word about your new business, like:

Building an email list and campaign before you go live
Placing ads in relevant online locations
Creating a hashtag so that people can find your business on social media
Sharing mini coaching tips and lessons on social media and in emails
Posting blogs, vlogs, or podcasts
Listing yourself in online directories
Attending relevant networking events online or in person

Becoming a life coach requires dedication, passion, and personal investment from you. But helping others achieve their goals and running your own business can be really exciting! We just ask one thing of you. Don’t let all your hard work go to waste by notusing a coaching contract with your clients, k?

With our attorney-prepared and peer-reviewed Coaching Contract Template, your new clients can trust in you and your biz from the start. It covers everything you need from your services, a payment plan, confidentiality, and more. No matter your niche, from business to speaking to health and wellness, our Coaching Contract Template has you covered!