How to Become an Online Business Coach 2022?

According to reports, the online coaching industry was valued at $15 billion in 2019, $7.5 billion alone in the United States. The incidence of coaching involving life, leadership, and business started two decades ago.

However, the prominence and growth of the internet have now shifted its focus more on the virtual tail of the bargain. Entrepreneurs and business heads are now more reliant on online business coaches than ever. It is not just for gaining support through tough decision-making; it involves better organization and management.

When you look up the keyword “Coaches” on LinkedIn, the search results exceed 6.8 million profiles. This is a report from April 2020. Sounds astonishing, doesn’t it? This also implies that an online business coach career isn’t a farfetched dream. It can very well be a lucrative earning source, provided you do things the right way.

This guide walks you through the definition of online business coaching, why it is important, and what you can do to become a successful online business coach in 2022.

What is Online Business Coaching?

Online business coaching is a virtual collaborative session between an entrepreneur, senior executive, business head, and business coach. The primary objective of the session is for the coach to help the entrepreneurial expert with business guidance, work around the pain points and help with decision making to support the growth of the business or company in question.

Most of the business coaches who work with executives of such high degree and caliber in a company help the individuals with proper guidance to running their businesses. The mentors can connect from anywhere globally since everything is done online without geographical barriers.

Some business coaches are professionally trained with formal certifications and programs, while a few others attain their experience higher education or from former work experience.

Whatever the source of knowledge is, a business coach offers guidance to the business owners who require the same. As a business coach, the sole goal is to help your client understand their potential, clear their thought process to support better decision making.

Why Should You Become an Online Business Coach?

Besides being a lucrative online business model, there are other rewarding prospects to becoming a business coach.

More than the financial freedom it brings, becoming an online business coach is a fulfilling job. You get to work with thought leaders, help them navigate the important business and financial decisions, and witness a business thrive and grow because of your contributions.

Besides that, let us further reiterate why the online business coaching industry is growing and why becoming a business coach is a job for the future.

It offers optimal flexibility

The hybrid work model isn’t just confined to the comfort of the corporate workplaces. It is emanating in the newer work experience too. As an online business coach, you have the flexibility to choose your work hours, your workspace, and so much more. The flexibility of an online business model ensures that you can pursue it to your needs.

It offers high-end profitability

When you are sparing your time and efforts as services to individuals and a business, it goes without saying that you want the monetary compensation to be equally rewarding. With online business coaching, you are assured of profitability. Reports suggest that the online business coaching niche market valuation is growing at 5.8% annually, with a current valuation at $10.9 billion.

According to Indeed, the average salary of an online business coach in 2021 was estimated at around $58,591, which is a pretty handsome figure. Earning that good amount with no commute and unnecessary hackles is a great profit.

It instills a feeling of fulfillment

As we have said earlier, becoming a business coach is more than just the money and the flexibility. When you become a life coach online or a business coach, you support and guide entrepreneurs. Your skills are fruitful enough to identify the pain points, roadblocks, and struggles of a business owner and provide them with the appropriate solution so they can pull themselves out of it.

The passion for becoming a business coach is extremely profitable when assessing the helping hand you are lending out to struggling business owners. With mentoring, you will find purpose in your knowledge and wisdom and put them to the best use.

 

7 Steps to Become an Online Business Coach

If all of the above motivators are enough to push you to pursue online business coaching, we are sure you are sitting here confused about certain situations. How does one become a virtual business coach? What kind of skills should one have? Do I need certifications? Can I directly start coaching entrepreneurs?

There is a whirlwind of questions that will rightfully pop into your mind, and it is a lot more common than you realize. Typically, this is where we will help you out. After deliberate research and many findings, we have whipped up a foolproof 7-step successful formula to becoming an online business coach.

Let us walk you through each of them in detail:

1. Ascertain and Segregate your Niche

You must be thinking, “But, aren’t all the business coaching models the same?” Well, this is where the biggest misconception prospers.

Business coaching is an umbrella term for many different niches or sub-categories.

Business coaching doesn’t mean you sit down with the company’s CEO and help him run a business. That’s not how things work. Hell, your business coaching client might not even be a CEO.

Some corporates seek business coaching for their teams; some seek it to better their leadership skills, while others focus on business coaching to improve their branding.

The goals and objectives of the clients seeking business coaching will vary. And, your skills will either cater to them ALL, or you have sat down and analyzed which niche you work best in as a business coach.

Are you good with leadership coaching? Do you think your skills will better work with brand coaching?

Finding the rightful niche for your online business coaching model solves more than half of the problems.

Once you have the niche sorted, it also becomes easier to market your business to the target audience without any inhibitions. Ideally, there are FIVE main types or niches of business coaching that one needs to know of. We have tabulated it for easier understanding.

2. Let’s take an example. Sort out the Qualifications and Certifications

You are struggling with a very bad stomach ache, and you have to see a doctor. While searching online, you come across two profiles – one doctor who is board-certified and has all the right degrees and another doctor who “claims” he knows it all.

Which doctor’s appointment are you going to take?

The first one, right?

Well, you must be thinking, “But, it’s about our health. Of course, one would seek a certified doctor for that. What has it got to do with business coaching?”

Well, a well-qualified business coach will treat the issues of the business from the root. A non-qualified business coach will just treat the “symptoms.”

Wondering what it does? The symptoms might be initially cured, but since the disease is still rooted in the body, the symptoms will continue recurring.

This is why business professionals, team leaders, managers, and entrepreneurs are always looking for qualified professionals. So, once you have your niche sorted, the next thing you need to do is get the right qualifications.

There are ample coaching certification programs certified by ICF that you can look into. Most of these courses are available online, making them a lot more accessible.

Besides additional or accessory certifications, having an educational degree in business or management can also help you tap the business coaching industry. The best way to build trust and reliability with your potential clients is by being transparent about your knowledge, experience, and credibility as a coach.

3. Define your “Ideal Client”

The short and direct answer for some business coaches might be, “Well, the one who pays me the most.”  And, while money is a primary deciding factor, you also need to realize that you want to provide your client with the value they need. If your client is paying you a certain amount of money and isn’t getting the services worth it, they won’t return.

So, before you explore the business coaching niche, you need to self-reflect and find out which kinds of business professionals you can help the best.

Certain factors will define your ideal client, and 90% of it has to do with your skills and experience.

Here’s a quick breakdown of questions that you need to answer in your mind to identify which kinds of clients you can work the best with:

• Identify the industry you’d work the best in. It could be IT, software, logistics, electronics, etc.
• Identify your greatest strengths. What can you help a business professional with?
• Identify the size of the companies you want to work with. Do you want to start with small businesses or larger MNCs?
• Identify which hierarchy of business professionals you are comfortable working with? Do you have the experience to work with the big-bad CEOs? Or, do you want to start with smaller entrepreneurs to build your experience and portfolio?
• Identify what will bring you joy, fulfillment, and a sense of achievement.

You need to sit down and assess these simple self-reflective questions. It is not an easy process. It can take you days, sometimes even months, to curate the list of answers that make you feel satisfied in the end. And, the answers to these questions can vary as you keep enhancing your experience in the field.

4. Sort out your Foreground Website

Would you look for CEOs in your LinkedIn profile and straight up ask them if they want business coaching services? Well, you could. Because there’s nothing wrong with generating outbound leads for your business. However, it’s not a very professional approach.

If you officially want to market your business to the right target audience, you need to start with the basics. And, by basics, we mean a website.

However, we understand that you are a skilled business coach and not a tech-savvy web developer. Well, Mastera allows you to host your entire website with a few simple clicks.

Yes, that’s right. All you have to do is avail of the subscription, use the website development tools available on the platform and click a few tabs and buttons to set up a fully functional website in a matter of minutes.

With a professional website, you can sort out your calendar bookings, schedule paid consultations, share your knowledge with blogs and videos and simply have a professional foreground for your services or business.

As an online business coach whose entire business depends on their online presence and website, you won’t have to worry about any issue when working with Mastera. From affordable monthly fees to a range of amazing customer engagement tools at your disposal, you get a lot more than you bargained for.

5. Prioritize the Content you Share

As a business coach, your credibility stems from two prospects – your qualifications and experience and the kind of content you share on the online platforms.

You might say, “So, what should I do then? How do I share my views and insights?”

Well, several online business coaches leverage LinkedIn as their first resort. Since the platform is brimming to the core with professionals, business owners, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders, it becomes easier to reach the correct audience with a valuable post or article.

However, the process isn’t easy at all. Growing on LinkedIn takes time. And, moreover, you can’t share your BIG Thoughts on LinkedIn since the platform has limitations to the characters per post.

The next best thing that you can do is start a blog. The power of blogging is understated. When you publish content that resonates with the thoughts of your potential clients, they are very well going to engage with it. It touts you as a credible professional and business coach and harbors trust.

If you want to diversify your content creation, infographics and videos are a good addition to the mix. Video content is highly engaging and allows you to leave your audience wanting more in the future. You can integrate short videos, trending reels, or even long-form YouTube videos to share your expertise and credibility with the clients.

6. Create an Online Course

“Online courses are boring; who would even buy them?”

 Well, this is where you are wrong. As a business coach, your skills can help many people in real-time. An online course can serve as a holistic foundation for your career and help you expand your realm of comfort.

With online courses, you can streamline the way for new clients; you can bring in more interested students who want to learn the ropes of online business coaching programs from you, and you get to do the maximum to upsell your valued services.

Mastera allows you to build your online course from scratch and then market it to the rightful target audience too. The platform offers you all the tools you’d need to start your online course-building journey and share your knowledge and services in the form of videos with your clients.

If you want to share recorded sessions as online courses, Mastera helps you sort that out too. You want to sell your services and videos and courses; Mastera has got your back through it all.

From website and profile page hosting to a range of digital product development tools, Mastera is an all-in-one integrated platform that will surely meet all your needs. With the right knowledge, the valued content, and a few tools, you too can build your professional online course in no time at all.

7. Focus on the Marketing Aspect

So, you have your niche, your website, and your course sorted out for your online business coaching services. But, how many people know about it?

If you don’t market your business the right way, there’s no point setting all of these up.

Your branding and the tactful marketing of your services are what elevates your name in the market. Since the competition is stiff, indulging in the correct marketing strategies is key. There are multiple ways you can outline a fruitful marketing campaign.

It can include:

• Social media marketing
• Email marketing
• Referral marketing or word of mouth marketing
• Search engine marketing and so much more

When it comes to marketing strategies, the sky is your limit. However, just because you want to market your services doesn’t mean you can do it without planning. This is where most business coaches fail.

With marketing, you have to plan, execute, and track the impacts. Closely monitoring the analytics of your marketing strategies can help you analyze what worked and what you need to tweak to get better results the next time.

If you don’t have the formal knowledge about marketing and you wish to grow your online presence, Mastera has a range of marketing tools, including email marketing and customer engagement tools, that you can leverage to your benefit.

Conclusion

Besides basing your business coaching services online, you also need to work on networking simultaneously. Reports suggest that 96% of in-person meetings and networking yield better returns. So, while you can provide your services online, try to attend events and networking trips that can bring you a flurry of potential clients.

Expand your network, connect with more people, share value via your content, and the rest will eventually take its course.

Now that you have a basic idea about the business coaching model and become one, start filling in the shoes and take a step ahead in the right direction.

And, to our delight, Mastera is going to support you through each step. Not only can you rely on Mastera for sharing your video lessons, but the platform also provides you with all the tools and resources you’d likely need to build your professional website, create your online course and then market the same to your target audience.

All you now have to do is identify your potential, shape your goals and work towards them with 100% determination and zeal.