How to Leverage LinkedIn for Your Coaching Business
By: Ram Gopalan
Tags: Simplycoach, Linkedin Marketing, Coaching, LinkedIn

For professionals, LinkedIn has become an indispensable tool to grow a network and further one’s professional career. The same applies to coaches — but not quite in the same way it does for a an individual in the corporate world.

As a coach, LinkedIn is not just a tool to showcase your previous work experiences — it is instead better suited to build your own personal brand and reputation as a coach.

And, according to Greg Cooper, a LinkedIn coach & trainer, LinkedIn is quite unique as it gives coaches direct access to the individual’s preferred target audiences and groups.

Let’s look at some more reasons why LinkedIn can be such a valuable platform for coaches:

A Big Professional Client Base — As a coach, you are going to be looking for a professional client base, the hub for which is LinkedIn. According to a recent study, LinkedIn is said to have over 660 million users worldwide — in more than 200 countries across the globe!

As a coach, you are going to be looking for a professional client base, the hub for which is LinkedIn. According to a recent study, LinkedIn is said to have over 660 million users worldwide — in more than 200 countries across the globe! Shorter Sales Cycle — Since people on the platform are primarily there in order to work towards their professional development, they are already more likely to consider and eventually hire a coach for their own professional evolution. And now — as everyone works to recover from the effects of the pandemic — is a good time to communicate the need and advantages of a coach in the life of a professional or organization.

Since people on the platform are primarily there in order to work towards their professional development, they are already more likely to consider and eventually hire a coach for their own professional evolution. And now — as everyone works to recover from the effects of the pandemic — is a good time to communicate the need and advantages of a coach in the life of a professional or organization. LinkedIn Pulse — LinkedIn has its own inbuilt news aggregation feed that’s designed for members to self-publish their content. Not only is this an excellent tool for creating content that your audience could find valuable, but it also has a higher search engine ranking on Google and a good probability of going beyond the reach of your own immediate LinkedIn network, which means more prospects can discover you through your educational content.

— LinkedIn has its own inbuilt news aggregation feed that’s designed for members to self-publish their content. Not only is this an excellent tool for creating content that your audience could find valuable, but it also has a higher search engine ranking on Google and a good probability of going beyond the reach of your own immediate LinkedIn network, which means more prospects can discover you through your educational content. Higher Response Rate than Traditional Email — According to LinkedIn’s research, the average response rate to LinkedIn InMail is 85% which is 3 times higher than traditional e-mail! The statistics are encouraging for a coach looking to reach out to their ideal client and inform them of their services or even use the conversation to run a survey of sorts.

Now that we know why LinkedIn has so much potential for you as a coach, let’s uncover some effective ways how you can optimize your LinkedIn profile to generate high-quality leads for your practice:

Optimize Headlines: To grow your coaching business the first thing you need to create, according to John Hawkins, a Business Coach & Consultant, is a client-attracting LinkedIn profile that is more ‘functional’ than it is aspirational in tone and style. “When I say ‘functional’, I mean ensuring your LinkedIn profile’s summary, headlines and descriptions use simple, common terms that your future clients would actually type into a search box to find someone like you.” says Hawkins, whose LinkedIn headline reads: ‘Executive Coach | Life & Business Strategist | Motivational Speaker’

Another interesting insight about your LinkedIn headline comes from Natasha Vilaseca, a LinkedIn Consultant who helps business owners and coaches implement effective LinkedIn strategies. Her method for an optimal LinkedIn headline takes it a step further from the functional headline and is a mix of three vital components:

Your expertise or specialization Target audience Customer pain and/or solution

Her own headline for instance says: LinkedIn Consultant — I help Coaches, Consultants & Agency Owners Generate Leads Using LinkedIn.

Essentially, your headline should be a modified one-sentence elevator pitch that is keyword-heavy, so you turn up when people are searching for your service in the LinkedIn search engine.

Pro Tip: Greg Cooper suggests there’s another opportunity beyond optimizing your headline: make sure you use the banner image space to reinforce your brand.

Join Relevant Groups: There are two ways you can leverage an existing community of people in LinkedIn groups, according to Shore. One is to be part of groups comprising other coaches, to open partnership and networking opportunities. The other is to join groups that are centered around the specific pain points of your ideal clients, such as business strategy or business management, and engage actively by providing value with your content and comments.

According to John Hawkins, the key is: “Don’t go into groups or comment on articles or status updates to promote yourself. People can smell a self-promoting sales pitch a mile away. Instead, add value and share your unique insights by responding to questions thoughtfully. Pick and choose your comments and conversations wisely, and engage with the types of people you’d ideally love to turn into your coaching or consulting clients.”

There are two ways you can leverage an existing community of people in LinkedIn groups, according to Shore. One is to be part of groups comprising other coaches, to open partnership and networking opportunities. The other is to join groups that are centered around the specific pain points of your ideal clients, such as business strategy or business management, and engage actively by providing value with your content and comments. According to John Hawkins, the key is: “Don’t go into groups or comment on articles or status updates to promote yourself. People can smell a self-promoting sales pitch a mile away. Instead, add value and share your unique insights by responding to questions thoughtfully. Pick and choose your comments and conversations wisely, and engage with the types of people you’d ideally love to turn into your coaching or consulting clients.” Leverage Analytics: LinkedIn insights and analytics are such easy tools for you to see who is liking, commenting, and sharing your posts. According to Hawkins, it then becomes easier for you to personally reach out to those professionals who are engaging with your content and start a conversation that leads to your coaching services. And since these professionals already have a context for the conversation, they can be considered to be ‘warmed up’ when you reach out and connect.

Aside from reaching out to ‘warm leads’, you can utilize LinkedIn analytics to assess the demographics of those who are engaging most with your content, figure out which content is working better than others, and pinpoint which specific professional backgrounds your business appeals to.

You can then leverage those insights to create and post content that you know these potential clients actually want to see.

LinkedIn insights and analytics are such easy tools for you to see who is liking, commenting, and sharing your posts. According to Hawkins, it then becomes easier for you to personally reach out to those professionals who are engaging with your content and start a conversation that leads to your coaching services. And since these professionals already have a context for the conversation, they can be considered to be ‘warmed up’ when you reach out and connect. Aside from reaching out to ‘warm leads’, you can utilize LinkedIn analytics to assess the demographics of those who are engaging most with your content, figure out which content is working better than others, and pinpoint which specific professional backgrounds your business appeals to. You can then leverage those insights to create and post content that you know these potential clients actually want to see. Don’t sell right away — be patient: Once you’ve connected with your prospective clients, it is important to build a relationship and provide value over a period of time before segueing naturally into speaking about your services. There are two things you must avoid: one, to start speaking about your services immediately upon connecting — this comes across as spammy and puts people off very quickly. And two, to go completely quiet after a period of activity; Greg Cooper insists that you must make sure you are getting involved with conversations, leaving comments, sharing relevance posts, and putting out content regularly. The key is to be patient and engaged.

Sources:

https://medium.com/the-ascent/how-to-get-high-ticket-clients-in-one-week-using-linkedin-without-being-salesy-67bbd92e51de

https://sarahsantacroce.com/blog/2017/03/best-place-for-coaches-to-get-clients/

https://www.inc.com/john-nemo/how-to-use-linkedin-to-build-a-powerful-coaching-and-consulting-platform.html

https://blog.shore.com/en/how-to-use-linkedin-to-grow-your-coaching-customer-base/

https://www.animascoaching.com/blog/how-to-utilise-linkedin-to-gain-clients-q-a-with-greg-cooper-195/