EP 309 - Starting a Coaching Business With No Clients? (Your 30 day Roadmap)
If you are starting a coaching business with no clients and want to land your first paying client, then you'll want to listen this episode. I am breaking down the exact step-by-step plan to go from zero clients to your first sale in 30 days or less. Even if you have no list, no website, and you're starting from scratch.
Starting a coaching business with no clients means you need to focus on the RIGHT things first. In this episode, I'm giving you the "come hell or high water" 30-day plan to get your first client, focusing on connection and conversations instead of getting stuck in preparation mode.
In this episode, you'll discover:
Why you don't need a website, course, or logo to start a coaching business (and what you actually DO need)
The "research call" strategy that takes the pressure off selling while connecting you with ideal clients
Exactly what to say when reaching out to potential clients without feeling pushy or salesy
How to create a simple beta offer that gets people saying yes immediately
When you're starting a coaching business with no clients, you need courage and conversations, not software and systems. This is the exact method I used to build my business and the same strategy I teach my clients who are getting results fast.
You already have the expertise. You just need one person who is paying you to help them while building your business. Let's make 2026 the year you stop preparing and start coaching.
ABOUT DEBBIE SHADID:
I've helped over 10,000 coaches build and grow successful, profitable boutique-style coaching businesses. My mission is to help you create a business that gives you freedom, impact, and income, without the overwhelm.
Subscribe for weekly coaching business strategies, marketing tips, and mindset shifts that will help you build the coaching business you've always dreamed of.
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Website: https://www.debbieshadid.com
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🎙️ Listen to the podcast: Life Coach Business Building School: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/life-coach-business-building-school-with-debbie-shadid/id1502118085
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Transcript
If you're sitting here today watching this video, you have zero paid clients, or maybe it's been months since you've had your last one. I want you to make a decision right now. I want you to decide that 2026 is the year you're gonna stop getting ready, stop preparing to coach, and you're gonna start coaching. You don't need a website. I know that sounds like a contradiction since I teach people how to do websites. But here's the deal, you don't need a course. You don't need a signature program. You don't even need a logo. To be a coach, all you need is one thing. You need one human being who is paying you to help them. My name's Debbie Shadid. I've helped over 10,000 coaches not only build, but grow successful, profitable boutique style coaching businesses. In this video, I'm gonna give you the exact 30 day plan to get a client come hell or high water. Even if you have no list, no tech skills, and you're starting from scratch. We're gonna get back to basics, Connection, research, and one simple offer that you believe in. If you follow what I say over the next 15 minutes, you're gonna find your person. Okay? Before we get into the tactics of what we're gonna do. We have to talk about your energy, the energy that you bring to this. Most coaches fail to get clients because they treat their business like it's a hobby. They treat it like it's a hobby that they're just having fun with, or they spend all their time getting ready. Let me say this again. You are ready. You don't have to feel ready. You just decide that you're ready. This is never gonna feel like it's easy. You just decide to do it anyway. here's my challenge. I. Gimme 30 days of what I'm gonna call come hell or high water energy, you know, get it done. And you decide right now that you're gonna get your first client in 30 days, no matter what you call it, whatever you wanna call it. That's kind of what I think of. Like, come hell or high water, I'm gonna get a client in the next 30 days. I want you to think of any way possible that you're gonna do it. You're gonna feel awkward, you're not gonna wanna do it. You're gonna have excuses about the technology, you're gonna wanna do something else instead, you're gonna wanna go watch a training and learn something new. You're gonna say that you don't actually have the skills needed, or maybe that you're not a great coach. You know, all that mindset stuff comes up. We gotta stop, lock in on getting our first client. we spend so much time hiding behind our computers, we're literally thinking about a business that we don't even have. I remember myself preparing like, how am I gonna handle a hundred clients? I need a client management system. You don't need a client management system. You need one client. You don't need a client management system for dozens of clients. I say this with so much love. I have something to sell you too, which is my coaching. But the deal is everybody that's selling software, they're selling you on the idea that you have to have their software to have a client. You don't need me or software to have a client. What you need is some courage and some conversations. Courage and conversations will equal clients. This is. The way that you build a business. Business is all about people. It's all about connection. So right, connection, courage, confidence. Okay? Money comes from people. So for the next 30 days, your only job is to talk to people. Are you in, if you're in, I want you to say out loud to yourself, like, yes, I'm doing this. Okay. Or tell me in the comments you're in it with me. I really want this to be the moment that your business changes. I want this to be the moment that you stop saying that you're a coach and that you start being a coach. And I wanna define this as I know you're already a coach. You spent your whole life helping people. Maybe you're even certified, whatever that is, but I'm talking about a coach with a paying client. the first step is. We're gonna sell. Selling feels really hard. Selling feels like pressure selling feels like, oh my goodness, right? As soon as you think about selling, check in with yourself, do you feel some resistance? If you do, we just wanna set that aside. Instead, I'm gonna give you an interesting angle to get started. What you can do first is research. Now listen, I operate my business with integrity. I teach clients with integrity, and I'm talking to you with integrity too. We're not gonna lie about anything we're doing, we're not gonna be dishonest any way we go about this. you are going to do some research because you need to understand more for your new business. This is actually what you need to do. I want you to find five or 10 people who you think might be your ideal client. This could be old friends, it could be coworkers, it could be your neighbors. You could even post on whatever social platforms you have, and look, I recommend your personal Facebook page. See, I'm doing some research for my business and I need to be able to talk to this particular person. describe the person that you wanna talk to specifically if you are too general. You're not gonna get the right person on the call. if you're a health coach, you wanna talk about the crisis they're having, the age they are, everything that they've tried, anything you can think of to describe the person and really paint the picture of what their pain is. This doesn't have to be hard. In fact, I always encourage people. If you don't know how to type out this thing and you want it to sound good, don't try to use ai. By the way, just pick up your own phone, make your own video, talk to the camera, and tell people what it is you want to do. say, I'm working on my coaching business. I need to be. Interviewing some people who meet this specific, kind of condition requirement that, okay, I'm doing some market research and I wanna be able to talk to some people about what it is they're experiencing. Could I have, not 15 minutes, probably more like 30 minutes to be able to ask you some quick questions. I'm not gonna sell you anything. And here's the truth. You do not go into this with the idea that you are gonna sell something. you just wanna pick their brain. this works because it takes the pressure off and while you are finding out answers and you have an opportunity to even use all this content on social media, now you have an opportunity to say, when I was speaking with somebody. About this particular thing. This is what they said, right? It looks like you're a person who's already in business, so let the pressure be off and go and genuinely ask questions. People love to give their opinion. I know this because it wasn't that long ago that I actually offered to do some research. I wanted to do some research not to get clients, but because I sincerely wanted to know some things, what I offered was to send people my favorite. Amazon business book. I did not say what it was. I just said In exchange for your time, I'm gonna send you my favorite book. 38 people signed up for a call. I literally had to close my calendar, people want to tell you what it is. That they have, information, opinion, ideas about, they do. They want to be heard, they wanna be seen. You don't have to offer to give them anything. You could offer to send 'em a coffee. It doesn't have to be anything. It's just a connection call. you wanna ask them while you're on the call. I highly recommend that you do it on Zoom so that you are actually recording it so you can get the transcript. But ask them, tell me what your biggest struggle is when it comes to this thing. What have you tried that didn't work? Why right now is the time? That you would be interested in solving this or when were you most interested in solving it? find out what their history is with this thing? This is a great question. if I met you a year from now in a coffee shop and like this thing was taken care of, whatever we're talking about. What would your life look like? What would have been the solution? You guys, they're gonna tell you exactly what you need to sell them. No kidding. If you ask, well, how did you get there? You know what they're gonna say? Well, I got some accountability and somebody really gave me some guidance on this and I got clarity around this. And they're gonna tell you exactly how to support them. when you're listening and you're taking notes, you let them do the talking. at the very end of this conversation, we're not thinking the whole time about selling them. At the very end of this conversation, or as a follow up to this conversation, you wrap it up by saying, let me recap this. I heard you say this, this, and this, and here's the deal. That is literally what I do. With clients. That is exactly what my business is structured around. And if that is true, remember we're not lying, then you can make them an offer. Like I would love to bring you in as a beta client, or I've got a special deal. I offer this three for three. Three sessions for $300 or three sessions for $100. I think I can really help you. I'd love to be able to have the opportunity to really use you as a testimonial. I'm willing to get you started as a trial client, as a beta client, as a founder, a founding member. You decide what you wanna call it. That's exactly how you can sell somebody right on the spot. imagine if you had five or 10 people that you were gonna interview this next week. Huh, y'all, there's an opportunity to have clients this week, so all you need is a Zoom account, a calendar to make this easy so you don't go back and forth, especially if they're in different time zones and a payment link. Decide ahead of time, if it's gonna be like three sessions, get started. Give it a try for whatever the price is, whatever price you feel comfortable with. The second step is to tell people that you're open for business. This sounds so obvious, but have you actually done it? Have you actually told people? when you're thinking about this commitment to find a client, no matter what, then you have to start telling people, I know right now you have a lot of fear of judgment. You don't want other people to, criticize you. You wondering what will they think? Well, let me tell you what, you have to get over it. If you actually want a client, you have to tell people and don't prejudge that they are not your client because you don't know who they know. what I want you to do is I want you to send an email to personal contacts. I want you to send a dm Yes, a real dm, like connect with somebody from high school. I have a client who just told me. A couple weeks ago that she started sharing on social media, what she was doing, and she started sending direct messages to people, reconnecting with them. and she actually had a high school friend that she had not talked to in over a decade who connected back with her and said, oh my gosh, what you're doing really resonates with me. And guess what? It became her first client. I'm not even gonna tell you what the DM should say, but it's simple. Like think of something like, Hey I just wanted to tell you what I'm up to. I've been working on this amazing thing, super passionate about it. I'm looking for people this month that I can help get X, Y, and Z. If you know anyone who is struggling with this, would you mind helping me connect with them? Did you see that right there? I didn't even say, I wanna help you. I said, would you mind helping me connect with them? Do you know anyone? It takes all the pressure off of the person that you're connecting with. It actually creates a way for that person to not feel like they're getting sold to and to be able to come back and ask you a question, like, really? That's interesting. What is it that you do? that's your second step. What I wanna make sure that you do though, is that you keep this really simple. When somebody's like, okay, well what does that look like, Debbie, what is that gonna be? You don't have to panic again, I've already mentioned you could do you beta pricing. You could do my founding member for this opportunity, my one-to-one coaching package. You do not need a course. You don't need anything. Even if you wanted to do 12 weeks at a certain price, then pick that. Make sure you have the link. You don't need the curriculum. I do recommend that you know what you wanna do in those sessions, like have it mapped out. We do that when we create offers with people, with our clients. We help them map out what it's gonna look like to get somebody to the actual result. But I wanna take you back to that interview. In the interview, if you asked the questions correctly, they told you what they wanted. you could take, if you interviewed five or 10 people, you could take all of those interviews. You could look and see what is the common thread that everybody wanted and everybody said they needed. That can be your offer. That can be the path to helping clients get the result. That you actually interviewed them about. Are you guys with me? you don't need a curriculum. You already have the expertise. They've already given you the answers, and if we're in the right niche, you already have a life experience to do this. So that's all you have to do to get started. Before we go on any further, I just wanna tell you. I have a brand new Canva training, and if you're thinking like, I don't know how to do this stuff, Debbie, like, I need to create a graphic to be able to share about my business. This brand new Canva training, and it's just been updated, will actually show you how to use Canva. I walk you through the whole thing of what it takes to create a brand, but I also show you how to utilize some graphics, and I'm giving you 30 days of social media graphics so that you can take a graphic. Rebrand it in your brand, even add your own picture. You only need one picture. You don't even need a professional photo shoot. Just pick a picture of yourself. In fact, you can take it yourself. I will talk all about that in this training. Go to debbieshadid.com/canva and you'll get that Canva training, and then I'll send you the graphics. getting your first client in this come hell or high water method where we're gonna do it in the first 30 days, no matter what. The only way that you make this happen is you do not give up. Yeah, you have to have a lot of courage. This is about you deciding that you're going to do it. It's about you not being defeated. You cannot let day one, day two, day three, day four, all the way up to day 29 getting no clients stop you, You keep going, and every day you ask yourself, what can I do today? To say this in a new way to connect with a new person, where if my life depended on it, would I find one more person that I could talk to about my coaching? I want you to put up a calendar on your wall. In fact, get one of those dry erase calendars or something where you can really make notes on it. give yourself a challenge. Honestly, you should do it every month. This year in 2026. Maybe this month it's your first client, maybe next month it's three clients. And however it's gonna roll out. When you give yourself this structure and you give yourself a deadline and you're committed to it, that's actually how you'll get your business built. I know that you are ready to do this, or you would not be here listening to this. Don't make this hard. If you guys like what I'm talking about, be sure to subscribe. I am always talking to you about ways that you can make your business easier. If you are a woman over 50, I just wanna encourage you the amount of wisdom and knowledge that you have, the amount of life experience that you have. Don't waste those gifts that you've been given. If you've had this intuitive hit and you know you're supposed to be doing this. Put on your big girl panties and let's go get out there and get your first client. Quit worrying about having the tech right quick, worrying about if you look good or if you sound good. You don't have to get dressed up to do this. You just have to get courageous to do it. Connection. I'm gonna add courage to it. This is a lot of Cs. Connection and courage and confidence and conversations. Getting comfortable. All of that happens through what I just. Shared with you guys, I cannot wait to see what you're gonna do. Don't forget to sign up for the Canva workshop and subscribe and follow and let me know in the comments are you in or are you not? You better be saying you're in and I can't wait to hear what's happening. I'll see you guys in the next video. Have an amazing week.
