Shownotes
Many coaches leave their training feeling inspired, motivated and completely unsure how to get clients. In this episode, Joanna shares the honest reality of starting from scratch, from leaving a stable HR career and navigating self-doubt to learning sales, visibility, pricing, and how to attract paying clients.
Timestamps:
00:00 - Coaching vs Business
02:00 - Leaving Employment
03:00 - Designing Your Life
04:00 - Money Reality
05:00 - Niche & Offers
07:00 - Stop Hiding in Learning
09:00 - Visibility & LinkedIn
11:00 - What Actually Matters
This episode is a reminder that building a coaching business is not about having the perfect website, logo, or strategy from day one. It’s about having the courage to start before you feel fully ready.
Useful Links
Download the 12 ways to get clients now
Dare Greatly in The Coaching Arena: In-person & Online mid-year Reset, June 2026
Learn about The Business of Coaching programme
Download the Free Digital version of Coaches' Planner (NEW edition 2026)
Free Essential AI Toolkit – 2 Must-Have Prompts for Coaches
How to secure more coaching clients' free training
Rate and Review the Podcast
If you found this episode of Women in the Coaching Arena helpful, please do rate and review it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
If you’re kind enough to leave a review, please do let Jo know so she can say thank you. You can always reach her at: [email protected]
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Mentioned in this episode:
Dare Greatly Event - June, in person and online
Before we get into today’s episode, tickets are now on sale for my signature event, Dare Greatly. This year, we’re focusing on how to 10X your results from the same effort. We all have such limited time, and there are so many things you could be doing in your business. But often, what’s missing is clarity on the one bottleneck that would make everything else flow so much more easily. At Dare Greatly, we’re going to zoom out so you can see your whole business ecosystem clearly. And when you can see the full picture, the next right step becomes far more obvious. This isn’t just learning. You’ll map out your business visually and join the roundtable conversation you most need right now - whether that’s clarity on your person, your offer, your reach, or your conversions. It’s happening both in person and online. If you’d like to join us in person for the full day, it’s taking place on Friday 26 June at the Roehampton Club in Barnes - a beautiful private members club where you’ll feel the shift from busy coach to serious business owner the moment you walk in. There’s free parking, and it’s also just a five-minute walk from Barnes station. Or you can join us online on Monday 29 June for a shorter version of the event. Sign up here https://go.joannalottcoaching.com/daregreatlysummer2026liveandonline
Transcripts
A lot of people train as coaches.
2
:Far fewer build a business
that actually pays them.
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:So in this episode, I want to talk
honestly about how to start a coaching
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:business, what actually matters,
what doesn't, and what I would focus
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:on if I was starting again today.
6
:Did you know this podcast
is now on YouTube?
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:I would really appreciate you
heading over to my channel, Joanna
8
:Lott Coaching, and subscribing,
liking, and commenting on a video.
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:In return, I will put your name into a
draw to win a one-on-one session with me
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:If we haven't met before, I'm
Jo Lott, a business coach, and
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:I help qualified coaches get
clients with honesty, not hype.
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:I have built my own coaching
business over the last few years
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:in several different niches.
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:Currently, I work school hours,
term-time only, and I support hundreds
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:of coaches to build a business
that fits their life through my
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:program, The Business of Coaching.
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:So let's start here.
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:You can absolutely start and grow a
coaching business, but I think one of the
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:biggest shocks for many newly qualified
coaches is this, learning to coach and
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:learning to build a coaching business
are two completely different things.
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:When you train as a coach, you're
learning powerful skills like listening,
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:questioning, holding space for people.
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:But when you start a business, you
step into something else entirely.
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:You are learning how to be visible,
how to talk about what you do,
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:how to sell, how to handle money,
how to deal with uncertainty of
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:no guaranteed wage in your bank.
27
:And for many people, that's where
things start to become nerve-wracking.
28
:I remember this myself because I
left my HR career after 20 years.
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:I had huge financial stability, final
salary pension, 33 days holiday,
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:all of the trimmings, or should I
now say trappings, of employment.
31
:I knew what I was doing and I was
good at it in terms of the coaching,
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:and then suddenly I was in this place
where I felt like I knew nothing.
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:I had to learn everything from scratch in
terms of being visible, going on social
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:media, speaking on podcasts, and there was
a real sense of, who am I to do this work?
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:Is this even a real job?
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:Can I actually make money from coaching?
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:So if you are in that place right
now, I want you to know that it's
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:completely normal and you can do this.
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:One of the first things I would encourage
you to think about is not your logo or
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:your website, but the kind of business
you actually want to build, because it's
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:really easy to recreate a version of
the working life that you were trying
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:to leave behind when you left your job.
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:So ask yourself these questions: What
do I want this business to give me?
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:What kind of life am I building around?
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:What do I want my days to look like?
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:And what would good look like financially?
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:For me, a huge part of this was
building a business around my children.
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:That was the reason I left my
job, because I couldn't get to
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:and from London anymore and do all
the school pickups and drop-offs.
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:And that decision about what I
really wanted has helped shape
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:the business that I have today.
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:That wasn't immediate.
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:It was because of hindsight now that
I eventually learned to say no to
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:evenings, weekends, all of those
things that when we start a business,
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:we just grab because we want to
grab any piece of work that we can.
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:So if you are doing that right now
and building your business alongside
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:work or evenings, weekends, just know
that that's okay, and just have your
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:long-term goal in mind of what you
want your business to do for you.
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:Alongside all of that, I had to
get really honest about money
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:because at the beginning I had
no idea what was realistic.
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:I was really naive and saw all of the
adverts that you see online as soon as
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:you become a coach and literally thought
I could create the sort of success that
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:many of these people were talking about
right out of the gate as a complete
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:newbie with no audience and no experience.
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:What I would now suggest looking at is
what do I need this business to bring
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:in to keep me viable, maybe pay your
baseline expenses, and then work backwards
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:to how many of each service do I need to
sell to realistically make that happen?
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:When I first did this exercise, I think I
was aiming for something like 50,000 per
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:year and broke down how this was actually
gonna be possible and soon realized
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:that actually with just one-on-one
coaching, it was never going to get
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:me where I wanted to be financially at
the prices I was charging at the time.
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:So slow down, do this calculation.
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:It can be hugely valuable for you to
understand if you're pricing high enough
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:right now to reach your financial goal.
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:So eventually I started to explore
other ways of working, workshops,
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:corporate work, and eventually a group
program which is what I do today.
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:The next piece where a lot of coaches
get stuck is your niche and offer.
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:So I'll say this really simply,
people don't buy coaching, and I know
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:that will be a shock, but they buy
help with their specific problem.
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:This was a big shock for me as it is
for most qualified coaches because we
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:train as coaches and we think broadly.
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:We know we can help anyone with
anything, and it's often intangible
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:things like confidence and clarity
which is genuinely priceless and we
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:know that, but the person thinking
about paying money for this doesn't
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:value those things as much as we do.
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:Because if people can't quickly see
that you can help someone like them with
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:something they really recognize as a
problem in their life and they prioritize
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:making this better They tend to move on
if you can't capture them emotionally.
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:So this is where getting
really specific helps.
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:So ask yourself, who do you want to help?
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:What exactly are they struggling
with, and what do they want instead?
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:And this is the hard bit.
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:Can you say that in
really simple language?
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:Not coaching language, not ChatGPT
clever language, but real human
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:language that everybody can understand.
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:The kind of words your clients or
whoever you are selling to would
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:use in everyday conversation.
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:From there, your offer becomes so
much easier to shape because instead
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:of you saying, "I offer coaching,"
or, you know, "I can do six sessions
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:or 12 sessions," you can say, "I
help this person with this problem so
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:that they can get to this outcome."
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:This is what makes it easier
for someone to say yes.
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:It also helps whoever you're talking
to understand exactly what you mean,
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:because if you say something that they
don't understand, you'll end up making
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:them feel really stupid to ask a question
about it, and then you've lost them.
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:Something else that really helped me
early on was speaking to real people,
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:not just consuming more training,
despite the fact that a little bit of
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:training is really useful, but it's
really easy to stay in learning mode.
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:Doing another course, watching another
webinar, taking more and more notes.
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:But the real clarity comes from actually
actioning that after the session.
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:This is why in my coaching program,
The Business of Coaching, we implement
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:things as quickly as possible.
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:Even on the call, we'll go on mute and
try and take some action immediately,
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:because action is what's going to
get you the result that you want, and
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:it's also the quickest way of actually
learning what you've just been taught.
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:So do ask your people, what are
you struggling with right now?
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:What have you already tried?
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:What feels hard?
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:What would you actually want instead?
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:And really listen as they describe this.
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:Don't generalize it because
their language, their real words,
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:will become your messaging.
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:Don't be fooled into thinking it needs
to sound more fancy, so you don't need to
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:generalize, "I'm just so desperate to get
a job," into career clarity, for example.
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:Use the phrase, "I'm so desperate
to get a job," if that's what
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:your market research tells you.
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:It also gives you confidence because
you start to see this is real.
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:These are real problems,
and I can help with this.
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:The next piece is visibility, and
I know this is the part many people
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:avoid because I avoided it, too.
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:I remember not wanting to update
my LinkedIn profile, definitely not
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:wanting to put a post out, completely
worrying what my old colleagues
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:would think and friends and family.
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:It was literally paralyzing.
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:But what I found was this, with practice,
visibility gets easier, and something that
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:used to scare you will no longer scare
you once you have done it enough times.
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:So you are never going to feel comfortable
until you have actually done that thing
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:consistently LinkedIn in particular
has been a huge part of my business.
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:You don't need to be everywhere, and it
took me a really long time to learn that.
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:I thought I had to be on Twitter,
Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, everywhere
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:at once, but you really can't build
relationships in that many places at once.
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:So start small.
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:Choose one place that you
really want to commit to.
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:Learn how that platform
works and really go all in.
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:Eventually, you can start to schedule
to other platforms, but really
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:it's actually quite hard to build
relationships on all of the different
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:platforms and learn all of the different
algorithms and things that you need.
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:So start small, choose your one
place, and start showing up there.
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:Okay, now let's talk about the
practical things because everybody
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:wants to know about these, things
like registering your business,
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:getting a bank account, insurance in
place, contracts, data protection.
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:All of this matters and it's worth
doing properly, but I really want
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:to say this clearly, many new
coaches spend a lot of time here.
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:We're talking months here
because it feels safer than
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:actually selling their services.
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:It feels productive, like you are
building something, but it doesn't
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:bring in clients, and the only thing
that's going to make you have a
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:business, not registering or not all of
those things, is real paying clients.
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:So yes, do those things,
but do them really quickly.
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:I'm talking a day or two, not a month
or two, because they can easily become
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:a way to overcomplicate a business
that will never come to being, and then
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:you'll have spent all of this money
registering your business but have no
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:clients because then you've lost momentum.
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:You're not showing up.
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:You're not bringing in the money.
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:So do those things quickly and get
onto the real work of building your
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:business, which is marketing and sales.
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:So if I were starting again today,
I would focus on a few key things.
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:I would get clear on who I wanted to help.
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:I would then create one simple offer.
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:I would then start speaking to
real people as early as possible.
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:Get visible way before you're ready,
even before you have the clarity,
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:because you are still then practicing
your visibility, so by the time you
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:get the clarity, you will be more
comfortable with being visible.
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:Next up, measure progress
by taking the right actions.
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:Be visible.
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:Track your sales activities every single
day until they compound and pay off.
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:I would worry a lot less about
having everything figured out and
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:having the perfect website and
everything established too soon.
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:If you wait for perfect,
it will never, ever come.
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:So starting a coaching business
is absolutely possible for you.
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:It takes time, it takes, most
importantly, courage, and it takes
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:a willingness to learn the skills
that sit outside coaching itself.
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:Know that it's the most rewarding and
exciting personal growth journey you will
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:ever go on because everything comes down
to you, and that's actually exciting.
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:If you would like more support with
this, I have a free guide called 12
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:Ways to Get Coaching Clients Today.
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:It is designed to help you
take action straightaway,
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:because that is my superpower.
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:So thank you for listening, and like
I always say, trust yourself, believe
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:in yourself, and be the wise gardener
who keeps on watering the seeds.
