How to Start a Financial Coaching Business

Have you ever wanted to learn exactly how to start a financial coaching business? If the answer is yes and you have a passion for helping others while making your impact in the world, you’re in the right spot.

In a world where more and more people are becoming self-employed, starting your own financial coaching business can be a lucrative and rewarding career choice. But what does it take to make the jump from working for someone else to working for yourself? 

Before we go further, we’re Cass + Tee, the partners behind this blog and the creators of Lovely Impact. As coaches and web designers with entrepreneurial hearts, we’re obsessed with all things coaching and love putting together resources to help coaches like you thrive.

We’ve created this guide to help you learn how to start a financial coaching business — from getting certified, naming your business, developing a brand, and marketing your services to finding clients and expanding your coaching network. 

So if you’re ready to take control of your career and start making money doing what you love, keep reading!

What is a Financial Coach?

A financial coach’s focus is on helping their clients manage their money. Financial coaches are there to guide individuals on paying off debt, managing their monthly finances, and handling their savings accounts. 

Often, a financial coach will also help their clients examine why they make the financial decisions they make, and aid them in controlling their spending. You’ll help clients understand emergency funds and how to create one, talk them through budgeting, outline financial plans, and explore spending habits.

Financial coaches will usually talk to their clients about their ultimate monetary goals and discuss how to reach these, creating a plan that will assist the client in setting aside money, reducing their spending (where necessary), and organizing their personal and household budgets.

You may also encourage your client to stick to the plan and teach them how to implement discipline when spending their money. You’ll need a good understanding of psychology as well as numbers if you want to be a great coach. Financial coaches aren’t regulated, but they do need to adhere to high professional and ethical standards.

How much do Financial Coaches Make?

As you might expect, financial coaches’ salaries can vary greatly depending on the region, the coach’s qualifications, local market rates, and more – but some sites place estimates between $46,000 and $71,000.

Consider checking out the going rate for this kind of coaching in your state before getting started, because they differ from state to state. In the current economic climate, financial coaches are in high demand, which means you could be earning quite well! But there are a lot of factors that determine what you can charge per hour.

Some financial coaches charge between $50 and $150 per hour, which is a big difference – and you’ll need to set your rates according to your experience and the local demand. Don’t be afraid to put a good value on your services, however; you risk underselling yourself otherwise.

The best way to determine what you are likely to make is to look at what other financial coaches in your area charge per hour, and see if any will disclose their annual income to you. This will give you the most accurate idea of what you could earn each year.

How to Start a Financial Coaching Business

Intrigued by financial coaching? Keep reading for a step-by-step guide to getting started.

Step 1: Become a Certified Financial Coach

It’s always important to be able to demonstrate to your client that you are serious, competent, and trained, but it might be more important for a financial coach than for any other kind of coach. The advice you give needs to be sound and based on fact (although financial coaches are not the same as financial advisers).

The best way to meet this goal is to take a course such as this Financial Planning Coaching Certification Holistic Coaching course. Firstly, this will give you some great foundations to work from as a coach and ensure you have covered all your bases. Secondly, it will prove to your clients that you are the “real deal.”

You want your potential clients to know that they can trust you and that you have the expertise you are claiming to have. Being certified is one of the best ways that you can do this – so don’t skip this step. It might be one of the most important aspects of how to start a financial coaching business process!

It is possible to become a successful financial coach without certification, but you’ll likely find it much more difficult, especially in the early stages. Certification proves your worth to your clients and gives them the confidence to hire you.

Step 2: Choose Your Financial Coach Business Name

Your business name will say a lot about you, and it’s crucial to choose this with care so that it conveys the things that you want to convey. A coaching name needs to cover quite a few bases, so take a bit of time to think about what names might suit your business.

A really great coaching name needs to connect with your clients and evoke an emotional reaction. Many financial coaches build their coaching names around the concepts of safety or growth. It also needs to reflect you and what you offer, and it may hint at the problem you are particularly invested in solving.

A coaching name also needs to be unique so it makes your business stand out from the others, and it has to sound great when it is spoken. It often takes quite a while to come up with a great coaching name, but this is an important element of how to start a financial coaching business, so don’t rush it.

➡️  Need more inspiration? Check this out:

• Step By Step Guide: How To Choose A Coaching Business Name >>
• Read stories about how coaches named their businesses >>

Step 3: Choose A Niche

Next on the list, it’s time to decide… what kind of financial coach do you want to be? Recognizing your niche is fundamental. Are you going to help people with day-to-day budgeting? Are you going to focus on those weighed down by debt? Are you all about how to save, save, save?

If you’re wondering how to start a financial coaching business, this is all critical to think about. Your niche defines everything about your business, from how you present to clients to how you build your materials. Without acknowledging your niche, you’ll struggle to appeal to your clients, or even work out which clients you should be targeting.

You might expect it to be limiting to define a niche, but often, it’s a really freeing process that helps you gain clarity and focus. You can better determine what your client’s pain points are and how to resolve them, and you’ll learn a bit about yourself and your motivations at the same time.

Finding your niche is almost as invigorating and exciting as choosing your job – it gives you a sense of definition and purpose, and it is an immovable early stage of building your business.

➡️  Need more assistance? Check out our guides:

• How to choose a niche for your coaching business >>
• Freebie: Choosing Your Niche Workbook in our resource library >>
• Watch: How To Identify Your Dream Clients (And Choose A Niche) >>

Step 4: Create A Financial Coaching Business Plan

If you’re a fan of numbers, you might already know that having a good plan is a great way to ensure success, and a big part of how to start a financial coaching business involves having a solid plan to work from. This is the next step you’ll need to undertake.

A business plan can be varied to suit your needs, but it should usually cover things like your mission statement, a brief description of your services, a quick section on what your clients need, and some information about the finances and your own business goals.

You might feel like most of this is already in your head, but putting it down on paper is an important aspect of making sure it’s clear and ironing out any kinks. It will help you to identify any possible issues and resolve them, and it may even give you inspiration on what else you can do to make your business flourish.

Your business plan will probably evolve and change as your business does, but make sure you have one and keep it handy. It will guide you through difficult periods and may make your business more robust because you can refer to it when you need inspiration and guidance.

If you’re ready to get a jumpstart on your business plan now, we have a mini business plan template for coaches that you can download for free HERE. After signing up, you’ll find the coaching business plan in the business resources section.

Step 5: Develop Your Methodology, Techniques & Tools

You may already have some great ideas about what you’re going to do to help your clients, but a structured approach can help here too. Most people who want to start coaching have notions about what they can do to make a major difference in their clients’ lives – but coaching is a lot more than that.

You’ll usually want a model that defines your overall coaching strategy and gives you a structure to work within, like the CLEAR or GROW principles. You can decide which you think will be the most effective for your clients, and then go on to start developing your tools and techniques.

The tools and techniques are the things you will use in your everyday coaching sessions. Think about things like the worksheets you’ll offer, the exercises you’ll do, and the nitty-gritty of how you will actually help your clients to identify and achieve goals.

Having all of this outlined before you start is ideal. You will find that these things grow and develop as you grow and develop, but you should have some idea so that you aren’t going into your early client meetings totally unprepared. 

➡️  Need more help? Learn how to structure your coaching programs here >>

Step 6: Create Offers and Pricing

The next step on how to start a financial coaching business is to develop your offers and pricing strategy. Since money is your game, you might feel at home here, but you should be cautious about overconfidence. You need to think carefully about how you are going to structure your offering so that you can give the best value while still earning a good living.

You should start by deciding what you are going to offer, not what you are going to charge. What sorts of things do your clients need? What bundles and experiences can you provide? Could your clients benefit from workshops, from one on one sessions, from online courses?

You should also look at what other coaches are offering and how you can distinguish your offering from theirs. From here, you should start to get an idea of the prices you can charge, and how to price your packages.

Remember not to undercharge, either. You might be tempted to create a cheaper offering to get your foot in the door, but you also need to value your service highly so that others will do the same. It isn’t always best to be the cheapest!

➡️ Need more inspiration? Grab our ‘Money Making Offers for Coaches Workbook’ here! >>

Step 7: Design Your Financial Coach Logo

A coaching logo is almost as important as a coaching name, and your logo needs to be simple, memorable, attractive, and emotive. You shouldn’t go crazy with lots of colors and designs – keep things plain so you can print it in any size or in grayscale and still have it look great. That said, you should use some colors to appeal to people.

You could look at what other financial coaches have used for their logos, and refer back to your business name for the atmosphere that you are trying to convey. What images do you associate with it, or with your specific niche? How can you give your clients a quick picture of what you do in a way that they will find memorable?

Your logo is an important part of your early communications with your client, and it’s often the most visual and eye-catching part of your business – so take advantage of that and design something that will really jump off the page.

Step 8: Create Your Financial Coach Website

Very often, your coaching website is the first thing that your potential clients interact with, so you want it to make a fantastic first impression. It needs to be functional before anything else, so spend time planning it from your clients’ perspective. Think about what they will look for, and organize your materials accordingly.

To start, you should build a site map that reflects the major categories and elements of your business, and use this to keep all the material in order. 

For visual inspiration, check out other websites to see what functions you might like to include and how you can organize them.

Financial coaches can use our website templates to enhance their online presence and show off their expertise to the world.

Jana is one of our most successful website templates for financial coaches! Click below to learn how you can use this to easily build your financial coaching website:  

Think about the major pages your site will have, like the homepage, any blog pages, contact information, and anything else your clients will need. You can deal with the aesthetics later in the process but start by focusing really firmly on functionality.

➡️  Looking for more? Get help here:

• How To Structure A Coaching Website  >>
• The DIY Beginners Guide to Websites >>
• How to build your website quickly & effectively >>

Step 9: Legalize Your Financial Coaching Business

There are quite a few must-do tasks that you’ll have to take care of before you actually open to new clients, but you’re almost there. Next on the how to start a financial coaching business is all the legal stuff.

This involves selecting a structure for your business, thinking about tax categorization, registering your business, and applying for an Employer Identification Number (if necessary). You’ll also want to look into what licenses and permits you require.

A business bank account is also a must-have, and you’ll have to decide what your tax year is. You may also want to think about things like insurance, and how you’ll pay your taxes when that time comes. 

This isn’t the most glamorous aspect of setting up your business, but it’s a critical part to take care of, and you can’t just skip over it. You might find it helps to mark these tasks off as you complete them so you know you’re all ready to go.

➡️  Need more help? Download our ‘Legally Launch It’ freebie for a complete checklist to keep you on the right track >>

As coaches, we invest our time and energy into empowering others, helping them reach their goals. But have you thought about protecting your own business and hard work? That’s where business insurance steps in! 

Insurance for coaching business owners is a policy you will pay for on a monthly or yearly basis which covers you for accidents and problems that could arise with your clients when you are coaching.

For coaches who value simplicity and straightforwardness, StartSure is a great option. They are committed to keeping insurance simple and offer comprehensive, easy-to-understand policies that coaches can make use of. 

One of the challenges of getting insurance for coaching business owners is understanding how a policy actually protects you. StartSure combines expertise with technology to simplify how you get the custom-tailored coverage that you need. 

Backed by Arch Insurance, StartSure offers mobile-friendly insurance options, so you have everything you need at your fingertips, and their range of policies makes them suitable for coaches in all the different niches.

Step 10: Create Your Coaching Contract

Once you’ve gotten to this step, there’s not much left to do, but you do need to set up a contract for your clients before you start coaching. This contract is crucial for protecting both you and your clients in the event of any dispute, and to make sure both parties’ roles and responsibilities are set out clearly.

Your contract will cover aspects like late fees, a confidentiality clause, and information about intellectual property. It will also have a limit of liability clause and a disclaimer and release clause.

You need to take the contract aspect of your business very seriously and make sure that you get professional advice if necessary to create a contract that covers all your business needs. Don’t just take templates from the internet and adapt them to your needs, or you could find your contract doesn’t do what you expect or need when things go awry.

Legal matters are often overlooked despite their utmost significance. Recognizing the financial constraints that may prevent hiring a lawyer, Practice offers a valuable alternative with their collection of free, downloadable coaching contracts. These contracts have been professionally crafted by lawyers and encompass both US and Canadian versions. Additionally, Practice provides sample contracts from real coaches for further reference. 

➡️  Want to get this part right? See these resources:

• The Official Coaching Contract 101 Guide >>
• Purchase a coaching contract from The Contract Shop >>

Step 11: Get Your First Coaching Client

Now that you’ve done all this work, you might be wondering about the next step… and it’s finding your first client. The time has finally come for you to put all your setup into action and start earning, but where do you begin? The process of attracting your first client and promoting your new financial coaching business can be challenging.

One option is to become a guest blogger for an established website. If you’re good with communicating difficult concepts in a digestible way, and can write advice out for people to follow, you might find that this is a great method. People will start to recognize your name and begin to associate you with quality content and great advice.

You can also partner with other coaches who have an established network and offer them some of your profits in exchange for the partnership or look for speaking opportunities in your local area if you’re better at verbalizing your ideas than writing them.

Tap into your network, too. There’s an enormous demand for financial coaches and the more you get the word out about your services, the more likely your friends and family are to pass clients your way.

Step 12: Grow Your Financial Coaching Business

Last on our how to start a financial coaching business list – growth. Once you’ve started with a few clients, you need to keep expanding to succeed. That means a marketing strategy is going to be crucial to establishing stability as a financial coach.

Design a client avatar that represents your ideal client, and think about where this person operates and how you can reach them. Your marketing strategy might need to be predominantly on social media, in local papers, or even in a nearby store. Through market research, you can figure out where to find and connect with ideal clients.

Work out what’s effective, drop advertising strategies that aren’t, and keep honing your approach so you constantly attract more clients. As you grow, make sure you are keeping your business streamlined and hire staff or pay for services you need to ensure smooth operations.

➡️  Need more help? Grab our FREE Marketing Research Plan from our resource library >> 

Final Thoughts – How To Start A Financial Coaching Business

So, there you have it! The essential steps you need to work through when learning how to start a financial coaching business. If you’re feeling called to help others manage their money and get on track for a bright financial future, we encourage you to get started as soon as you can.

Take it from us, coaching can be a tremendously rewarding experience – both personally and professionally. Plus, with the tips and advice in this post, you’ll be well on your way to launching a successful business that helps people achieve their financial dreams. 

Ready to make a move on your dreams of becoming a coach? Now that you know how to start a financial coaching business, leave us a comment below and let us know what’s inspiring you to get started!