Do you feel like you’ve been working your butt off, but your coaching business just isn’t going anywhere? Keep reading this personal branding for coaches guide… it may be the missing piece you’ve been looking for.
Inside you’ll learn:
- What personal branding for coaches is.
- What goes into rebranding your coaching business.
- How the coaching industry has drastically changed over the last 5 years.
- An in-depth look at why you need to rethink your branding.
- And more.
Why personal branding for coaches?
So many coaches pour their heart and soul into their business, sacrificing any sort of social life they may have had, and for what? Long work hours, loads of stress, and no coaching clients to show for it.
What if I told you it’s not your fault? You’re doing everything perfectly, it’s just that your efforts are a little misguided. Wouldn’t that be a relief?
The bread and butter of any coaching business is defining its personal brand, and sometimes a coach misses the mark on that crucial first step.
When your brand is off, your whole entire coaching business will suffer. Your target market won’t be interested in your services, you’ll have a hard time attracting new coaching clients, and you’ll end up working more and more with little to no result.
Sometimes, all you need is to sit down and have a little do-over.
What is personal branding for coaches?
As a coach, your personal brand is the skill, experience, and personality you want your peers and audience to associate with you.
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Media portrayal, information found online and how you are perceived by people in real life and it all aligns with your personal brand. Your personal brand can be used to set yourself apart from other coaches.
Many coaches rush through the personal branding process to hurry up and get their business launched and start booking clients.
🤚🏾 Raise your hand if that’s you.
Actually… pat yourself on the back if that’s you. It’s what you should do. It’s called a lean startup. We did it too.
However, now that you’ve figured the basics out, it’s probably time to rebrand!
What is Coaching Rebranding?
Basically, rebranding is a process of researching your audience, your coaching business, and your core message and working towards perfecting and changing your current branding.
A rebrand can involve something as simple as a new color palette, or as drastic as a whole new name and logo.
The branding example above is from our executive coaching website template, Callie.
The goal, of course, is to create appeal for your target marketing by making your coaching business more desirable and relevant. This is called brand awareness. And brand awareness leads to more visitors to your website and social media platforms. And visitors leads to more leads. And more leads?
You guessed it. More coaching clients.
5 Reasons to Rebrand Your Personal Branding for Coaches
Still on the fence? Here are some common reasons you might choose to rebrand your coaching business, and some suggestions on how to fix each:
1. You’re not attracting coaching clients.
We’ve already talked about this, but let’s dig deeper.
If your brand doesn’t appeal to your target audience, it could be for any number of reasons. But it’s fixable! The first thing you need to do is take time to research your market and find out who your future coaching clients are.
Some questions to ask yourself include:
- What sort of people might benefit from my coaching services?
- Are they male or female?
- What is their age range?
- Are they married, and do they have kids?
- What do they do for fun?
- What social media channels do they use, and where do they get their information?
Get as detailed as possible and use whatever information you gather to revamp your brand. Your goal here is to create content that will appeal directly to your target market – your images, your newsletter, your social media posts, and everything else you produce should both inform and intrigue them.
If you need some guidance, check out our Ideal Client Avatar Worksheet in our coaching business resource library.
2. You’re no longer relevant in today’s coaching industry
Sometimes you can start off doing great, but then as time goes on, people start to forget about you. It happens. Especially if you started coaching in the early 2000s or later.
Today’s coaching market (6.7% yearly growth rate), is saturated with new coaches. It’s easy for clients to quickly become distracted by the newest shiny coaching methodology or the hottest niche.
Personal branding for coaches is all about helping you appear more relevant so you can regain your audience’s interest.
3. You’ve recently switched coaching niches
If you’ve changed the focus of your coaching business recently, chances are your old branding won’t work for you anymore. Branding is based almost entirely on target audience, and with each new coaching niche comes a new target market.
That means that every time you change what you offer, you must once again go through the research process we covered above. Determine your new audience and alter your brand accordingly.
4. Your coaching mission has changed.
Maybe you didn’t switch niches, but your coaching business just grew and evolved. If this is you, you may need a personal brand realignment that reflects your new mission, vision, and service offerings.
For example, we’ve had clients come back to us because their coaching businesses evolved from 1-on-1 coaching to retreats, books, group coaching, speaking, and more.
Need help figuring out your coaching mission? Check out our Mission Statement Worksheet in our coaching business resource library.
5. The needs of your clients have changed.
Many coaches are being forced to reevaluate their brands because their clients have evolved. The world’s economic, political, and cultural climate has drastically shifted in a short period of time post-COVID.
Clients today are more in tune with their spiritually requesting meditation, breath work, affirmations, and more. Diversity and inclusion are now a requirement for coaches in corporate spaces, and remote work has changed everyone’s priorities.
The truth? It’s becoming mandatory to adapt or get left behind.
6. You need to differentiate yourself from the competition.
With market saturation being what it is today, you can be sure that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other coaches doing exactly what you do. On top of that, every single one of those coaches can quickly and easily be found on Google, just like you.
If you find that you are having a hard time gaining an audience, it may be because you are too similar to everyone else in your niche. A fresh personal brand can help you create a new, unique image to help differentiate your coaching business from everyone else.
Rebranding takes some time and effort, but if your current coaching brand is failing, it’s one of the best things you can do.
Conclusion: Personal branding for coaches is powerful.
I hope this post showed you how powerful personal branding for coaching can be.
If you’re having trouble attracting coaching clients, chances are your branding is the problem. In today’s ever-changing world, coaches have to constantly adapt, or go the way of the dinosaur.
Rebranding is one way to increase relevancy and improve reputation.
Now I want to turn it over to you! Which of the 6 reasons do you relate to?
Are you going to rebrand your coaching business?
Either way, let me know by leaving a comment.
About The Author
Hey! I’m Tee, a Certified Business Coach and a Co-Founder at Lovely Impact. I help coaches grow and scale their coaching businesses. Here on our blog, my content focuses on web design, marketing, business, and social media strategy.