#203: Why Great Coaches Struggle to Attract Clients (And How to Stop Feeling Invisible Online)

It is not about working harder or shouting louder or being more on more places , whether it's your LinkedIn , facebook or your Instagram . It's not about shouting louder . It's actually about working smarter , how you can work smarter and why greatest coaches are struggling to attract clients and how do we actually stop feeling this way ?

So if this episode is for you , let's dive right in . Hey , you're listening to Make it Visible Podcast . I'm your host , michelle Kui . I am a visibility marketing coach and soon to be your business bestie in the coaching business world . Not knowing how to connect with your audience grab the coaching business world .

Not knowing how to connect with your audience , grab people's attention and get them excited to buy from you should never be the reason you give up on your dream to become a full-time coach . I'm all about making marketing the easiest part of your coaching business , so that you can turn a passion for coaching into a visible and profitable reality .

So buckle up , ladies , let's get started . Okay , let's talk about , first of all . There is a lot of amazing coaches . I know who's out there and who's pouring their heart out going out on social media , doing live and doing Instagram the reels .

They're dancing their way onto social , but somehow there is not a whole lot of engagement , there's not a whole lot of follower growing and you probably get more pitch to their service than , rather than , requesting for yours . It's not because you're not doing enough . It's actually you're not doing strategic things that would actually draw the clients in .

And so posting content , that's great . That's creating a social media online presence . If you've been following me for a long time , you know I'm all about creating that online presence , making sure that you have all the front , the storefront , ready to go so that it's clear to your audience when they land on your social media profile .

And if you have a website , that's even better . It's not a requirement , especially if you're just starting new , but if you've been out in the game for some time , I highly recommend and suggest that you do have a professional looking website , because , in fact , if you do want to land on speaking gig a lot of time .

These are the stuff that people will be looking for , to whether or not you're legit . You're not just some pop up coach from somewhere on the internet . You actually have a legitimate business that you are trying to grow and build . Depending on where you are on your journey , if you're starting new , then perhaps you might want to hold back .

Maybe you don't have the budget to create a website yet , or perhaps you've been out for a couple of years and you do have that bandwidth to have a professional looking website . I highly recommend that you actually have a website and if you need help to write those copies , let me know . Drop into the comment or reach out to me via email .

I can definitely help you with the copies to make your words sound more like you only better . So there's a couple of reasons why coaches are struggling to attract clients . One is the content . They keep posting the content , but the information is just very dry .

I'm pretty sure that you have come across these type of social media posts where it's about educational stuff . But educational stuff doesn't have to be boring and when you look around , a lot of coaches are posting on social media . But these are educational posts and when people go onto social . They're looking for entertainment .

They're looking for something that's fun , something that's short , something that's punchy , something that attracts their attention . If you continue to post those dry and boring posts , I mean , it's great to create awareness for the fact that our mindset changes everything right . Believe me , I know this because I used to post the same stuff .

If you scroll all the way back on my Instagram account , that's what I used to post . I used to post a lot of these dry material and content .

It makes perfect sense why I wasn't getting the traction I wanted until I learned the fact that there's things that you need to do on social in order to create that engagement , to invite your audience to actually to converse with you or to have people reaching out to you or sending you DM . So just posting it's not going to be compelling enough .

You need a strategy to do that , and I do have a program for that , by the way . Posting content is great , but it can be a little dry sometimes . Or the material is boring , or the topic that you have chosen is just too serious and people scrawl you by really quickly because there's something else that captures their attention .

So where does their attention go ? They go somewhere else . The other thing that why great coaches are struggling to attract client is the fact that sometimes you're attracting the wrong audience . You're focusing on too much of calling people out but , like a lot of time , what you decided to land on , it's not really what people resonate with .

I remember coming across with this , this amazing coach , and she's wonderful , she's very inspiring . I read her , I read her story and it's really truly inspiring . But every time she posed , she always have that same rhythm of where the post came from and where she got the idea from .

It's the same format all the time , right , and when we go out , when we speak to our people , the friends that we meet , or a stranger we encounter in grocery stores or places that we have never think of , and we have conversations . That's not the way that we talk .

So just because you're on social , just because you're writing content or just because you're speaking on YouTube or podcasts or webinar , it doesn't mean that you have to change who you are right .

So the way that you address to someone , the way that you talk and having a conversation with an audience , you don't want to lose that personality touch or that personal touch that brings people in , because who you are is the ultimate attraction for people wanting to be closer to you , right ?

So a lot of times , coaches are struggling to attract client because it's the wrong audience that they're in front of , and sometimes social media might just not be the answer .

And the other reason why some of the coaches and great coaches they're struggling to attract client is that we all know this , because we probably spend a whole lot of time , and there's a couple episodes I was going through all my episodes that I have done in the past .

There's episodes where I talked about why you need to have a niche and , same as a speaker , you need to have a defined topic that you would like to speak on and , whether you're a coach or a speaker , there's something about narrowing it down to your specialty , something that keep people , give them a reason to remember you by .

That's really important and that's going to help you to attract the right audience . Because you have that clarity in terms of your messaging , because we all know that general advice . I can find it somewhere else . Why would I come to you ?

I come to you because you have a special area that you focus on and you have more knowledge than anybody else that I can trust . So having that a lack of clarity let's just put it that way a lack of clarity to your messaging , is the reason why you're not attracting those high quality clients . You're a great coach , right ?

We all know you went through the trainings and you have years of experiences . It's so much that you got the skills , you got the experience , you got the passion , but somehow that messaging is just not landing that post that you're putting out , the video that you're creating , it's just not resonating . What's the problem , right ?

So today , in this episode , let's break down the problem . Let's talk about the problem . It's not about how you show up . It's actually about where you show up and how does the audience perceive you . So a lot of times you'll hear me talking about the brand positioning . It's about the position that you are putting yourself in this market .

That's going to lead to someone perceiving you as someone who is expert or someone who just another coach , and you don't want to be seen as just another coach .

So the more clarity you have in terms of what is it about you that stands out from the rest of the speakers and coaches , the better you're going to be able to help to connect with the right audience that you want to attract , and that's your step number one , right ?

So the clarity is coming from you knowing exactly what is it about your topic , your niche , your specialty , your expertise that is different from everybody else . Yes , there's a personal touch . Your personality definitely play a role in here .

How you speak to others , how you show up , you actually is the reason why you are different from all these other coaches , but the approach and the way that you describe it is also very important . So , until you have that clarity , sometimes you'll find yourself like you continue to refine your niche , but your niche is not the problem .

It's actually you are the problem , right ?

Because you don't have that clarity in terms of what that niche is and therefore , no matter what kind of niche or topic that you came up , because you don't have that clarity in terms of what that niche is and therefore , no matter what kind of niche or topic that you came up with , you don't feel like it's landing , it's resonating , and so , if you don't have

that clarity , you have that clarity issue and sometimes we're just way too close to our work in order to see it .

And , as a matter of fact , I recently had this experience where I was having this clarity in terms of , oh , what is it about me that I can offer to my audience , my coaches and these female coaches who are trying to grow and scale their business , what is it about me ?

And so I had to look back , and this was through a conversation during a coaching calls , and so that clarity sometimes it comes from someone else who share that perspective of , hey , have you thought about approaching it from this perspective ? And it's that moment of like light bulb moment that change everything that you do .

And so you realize what makes you different and I'm guilty of this too is that I don't want to offend people , right ? We don't want to have an opinion that's so strong that it hurts someone else's reputation or someone else's approach or someone else's perspective .

And because of that , we tend to be very soft , we tend to be very gentle and , in other words , it almost feels like we're trying to please everyone and we don't want to piss off somebody or say the wrong words to make people feel offended . But if you think about it , do you still have those opinions ?

Probably , yes , you wouldn't come off very strong and say , oh , that person is wrong , that person doesn't know what they're talking about .

You come off from a very loving place , but you do share your perspective , you do share your opinion about certain issues or topics , and so if you try to please anyone , then it's hard for people to know , like , where do you stand ? And you need to pick a stand .

Especially if you have a topic that you're thinking about in speaking , or perhaps you're a coach and you rather focus on one methodology versus another , then you do need to stand up and take a stand right , take a viewpoint , and that's really important , and it also helps to attract the right audience to you , because chances are the audience that you're attracting

also resonate with some of the things that you're sharing , or the perspective or the value that you're delivering through your content , through your videos or through anything that you create and put out into the world . Okay , so those are the problems that coaches great , amazing coaches who are not attracting clients . So how do we stop feeling this way ?

Right , and that's probably client . So how do we stop feeling this way right , and that's probably it's been going through your mind ? We all know we can feel that when something is not clicking , something is not translating to money , or you're looking at your bank .

You continue to put out , but you're not drawing in cash or revenues , but you would like to have this business . So , ultimately , how do we actually stop feeling this way ? So here are some of the ways that you can stop from feeling invisible online . So this is something that I have actually gone through and these are the steps that have worked for me .

So hopefully I'm sharing these steps with you that you can actually think about where , towards the end of the year , and you can think about how to incorporate these elements and take some actions so that , starting in 2025 , you're not going to feel like you're invisible and you're just being overlooked . Okay .

So step number one is to realize that this feeling of discouraged , this feeling of invisible on social or anywhere , right , when you go in person or virtual , in the real world , or you're here online , it's not a reflection of your talent or your potential . Okay , all right .

Sometimes I feel like we need to remind each other that it's not your skill , it's not your talent that's in questions . It's because the strategyable , and we need to get that clear so that , before you start enrolling yourself to more certification program or spending more , let's take a step back and look at all the skills that you already have ?

Have you been using them to their fullest ? All the skills that you have learned and acquired so far ? Have you been using them to the fullest ? If not , it's not because that skill is not good enough . That's not enough . It's because how you present it , how you show it and how you describe it to the general public , it's not landing .

And if that is the case by enrolling yourself into another coaching program or to another skill , learning another skill or getting another certification that is not going to address the problem that you had originally . So we need to get that clear .

It's not your skill or talent that's in question , it's the approach , the strategy that's in question and therefore you haven't been able to use the skills that you already have Right . So let's start with that as number

one . Step number two is we all go through our everyday life . We have this narrative that we all carry in our head , narrative that we all carry in our head . And same thing with your dream client . They have this constant inner critics , the voice in their head . They're walking around and thinking about their problem , that they have .

And these are the things that you want to address to your dream client and you want to create content , whether it's a live video , or maybe it's an Instagram reel or a short video that you're going to post on YouTube , or perhaps it's a social media content that you're going to put out .

You want to be able to address the internal narrative that they have and talk with them Not talk to them , but talk with them and walk them through the journey of how your approach is going to help to solve that problem . So focus on addressing those internal narratives that your dream clients would have . And how do you do that ?

I personally found and those of you who's following me for a long time I'm a big fan of storytelling .

So a lot of time I tell stories about how I was a negative self-talker and there's a long history of how I was using a lot of the negative comments or criticism towards myself , and so you want to be able to use and tell your own stories about how you were able to overcome something .

Or perhaps it's your client who are able to have this transformation that they're experiencing , and so use those simple aha moment to demonstrate how this approach and what they're struggling it's . They're not feeling it alone , right ? So tell the story . That will connect . So that's just so far we talked about .

Step number one is you don't wanna think about , you , don't want to think about you , don't want to think and feel that you need more certification in order to prove to somebody that you're good enough , right ? So that's step number one .

That's a mindset shift and that's something that you would have to put your stick in the ground and say , yeah , no , I'm going to use my skills , what I have right now , to the fullest before I enroll myself to another certification program .

Okay , cause you'll be surprised how many coaches actually enrolled themselves and have a lot of badges , but they're still struggling to get clients . So it's not how many badges that you have is what are you going to do with these badges ? If you have no clients , what are you going to do with them ? Nothing , okay .

So that once you get that clear , then you want to create content . Content would be like something like a video , or maybe a blog post or a social media post , or maybe it's a podcast episode like this , right ?

So those moments you want to address what are some of the things that your dream clients are feeling or they're struggling with , and how you have the solution that's going to help them . And how do you connect with them ? You connect with them through storytelling , whether it's your own stories or your client's transformational story .

Share those aha moments with your dream client , with your audience , to prove the point that , hey , they're not dealing with , they're dealing this alone . There's actually people out there who's like them , who's dealing the same thing .

So storytelling is your really best skills and best strategy that I wanted to bet my dollars in 2025 , that's actually going to take off a huge okay , it's been taking off like for years and years throughout history . But I bet 2025 , you're going to see a lot more coaches and speakers using storytelling . Okay , and stop overthinking about your content .

I cannot tell you so . Over the years , I have worked with hundreds of coaches and showing them how to create that and build that social media presence and so that they can start market their coaching business , and I cannot tell you how many coaches I have encountered . They overthink their content all the time . Should I use this line ? Should I say this ?

Is that too complicated ? Is it too much ? So you see , all these overthinking . Brilliant mind , okay , brilliant human you are , and you end up spending so much time perfecting that content , your content , whether it's a video again video I'm going to use content in general sense , as in video .

Whether you like to produce video , podcast or anything , any type of format that you would like to share with your audience is that you don't want to overthink it . The overthinking is only going to stop you from posting it , and your content does you no good if you keep it in your Google Drive or your hard drive and it's not out there , right ?

That's why you're not attracting clients , because it's in your hard drive and nobody else saw it . And I remember I had a conversation with one of my clients and she's notorious for keeping lots of notes . Like her notebook was full . She had pages upon pages of ideas and pages upon pages of content .

But those pages of pages of content and ideas , if you don't send it out to the world , it's always just going to be part of your notebook and the world will never see it . And so stop thinking about your content . Just put it out there . Don't let it be perfect , right ? You're not a copywriter . You're not like me . I love and enjoy creating content .

I love and enjoy having these little tidbits out on the social . I rarely write anything . Keep it just for my notebook . It's always I have an idea , I scheduled it and I post it and I can take it back and refine it , and so don't overthink your content . Okay , and sometimes you do want to .

So the next step is really about taking it back and think about how did it land for some of the people . What are some of the comments that I have received ? Are they encouraging ? For example , a couple of weeks ago , I had sent out an email .

It had nothing to do with coaching per se , it was more about the current situation and I took a moment to take a stand and validated the feelings that a lot of women are going through after the election . And that email I got so many responses back , but before I clicked that send , I was hesitating .

I was thinking about whether or not my message was clear and whether or not I expressed what I truly felt and what others might be feeling . Moment , you want to take a step back and reflect on what do I want this message to be right and how is it going to receive by the person and what type of response that I got back .

And I was really glad that I had sent out that message because the comments that I have received . It was just very empowering . It really brought me in tears knowing that there are women out there who felt the same way that I did .

It was a lot of sadness , grief , that I share in that email , and I was really inspired and also feeling empowered by the fact that I wasn't the only one who felt that way . But when you create these content , once you publish them , you want to think about . Was my message clear ? Did I show up authentically , right ?

So if you're creating a post and you're using ChatGPT , take a moment before you post it . Would this be something that I would typically said and that's a great copywriting skills that you can use in your own content creation ?

And I would love for you to try this out Before you post anything , go through it and read through it to yourself , or before you go onto a stage and say something right ? Is this something that I would say in my everyday life ? If the answer is no , then don't post it , because then you're not showing up authentically .

But if the answer is yes this is how I would feel , this is how I would say to others then by all means , do share , right , because that to me is authenticity .

And so take a moment before you do anything or taking the action , think about would this be something a reflection of my brand , of my person , who I am , or is this just so that I can get more engagement ? And that would be a very important notion to think about . You want to create a brand .

Whether you're a speaker or coaches , you have a business and your business represents something . Your business represents you . Especially , if you're a solopreneur and you are basically the face of your business , then you don't want to have the public to perceive as somebody who you're not .

And so take a moment and reflect all the things that you're putting out into the world , whether or not this is something that you would typically use , and is it authentic ? Does it show authenticity ? Let's summarize real quick . Okay . Now social media . I know a lot of you are using it , leveraging it to grow your audience , to be online , to be visible .

But here's the thing , okay and I say this because this is also true for me and earlier I talked about I have went back and thought about what is it that I did that really changed my coaching business and really changed on how my approach to grow and scale my business is that I realized social media was only part of the puzzle .

I remember when I first started out , I was struggling in the in-person world because a lot of time I didn't know how to approach , I didn't know how to talk to people , and so majority of my time I brought it back to social .

Because social was easy for me to create content and I didn't have a lot of time that I could leverage to attend all these networking events . So I needed to save time , I needed to save money , I needed to work more efficiently . So social media was something that's more efficient , something that was easy for me to access .

But that was only part of the puzzle . There's another way that you can actually amplify and connect with your dream ideal client in the way that feels even more powerful and feels less exhausting . Okay , so I'm going to give you a heads up .

I am actually working on putting together a brand new masterclass where I'm going to show you and be teaching you exactly how you can grow your coaching business by showing up in a way that position you as the go-to authority in the niche .

Okay and this is , in addition , whether or not you want to be on social or not , this masterclass is or not you want to be on social or not , this masterclass is might be it really might be the answer for you , because this is something that I have not done before and , as I reflect back , social media really did take a take my business off , but that was

only part of the pieces of the puzzle . There's another piece that I haven't really shared to the public or to all of you this way , but it really amplified what I was doing on social . So the two came really nice together and I'm putting together a masterclass that I'm going to share exactly what that missing piece is .

If you'd like to stay in the loop , there's a link down in the episode note .

Go ahead and be subscribed to my newsletter using the link in the episode note down below , and what you're going to do is you'll be the first to know and , plus , you'll be getting all my additional resources that I send out every Monday and Friday , okay , so if you like to stay in the loop and you wanted to get the be the first to know when I have this

masterclass coming out very soon , then go ahead and subscribe to my newsletter and I will send you more additional resources every Monday and Friday . Okay , so that's recap . Here are some of the takeaways that I want you to walk away with from today's episode .

Is that , first of all , you are not invisible because you're not good enough , right , we are clear on that . You are invisible because your message is not reaching to the right people in the right way on social , and we can fix that . There's another way that you can make it not so exhausting , and it's actually quite enjoyable , if I may say so myself .

So if this episode is speaking to you , then be sure to share it with a fellow coach who needs to hear this . And don't forget to join me in the next episode where I'm going to talk about . Let me see what we're going to talk about .

We're going to talk about why your small audience maybe you only have a small followers , small number of people on your email list and how that actually could be your biggest asset . That would be episode number 204 . We are on a roll this year . We are actually . This episode is actually 203 .

If you've been liking and enjoying this podcast , I would love , love , love for you to go ahead and share it with a friend .

Invite them , because there's a lot of things I'm going to talk about next year that you are going to absolutely love it , and I have a couple lined up for a guest speaker as well , so hopefully this is going to address a lot , helping you , especially to really take 2025 to a place where you've been waiting for Until next time .

Keep showing up , keep shining and keep thriving . The world needs your voice and I will see you in the next episode . Thank you for listening to Make it Visible podcast in the next episode . Thank you for listening to Make it Visible podcast .

If you love this episode and want deeper support for your coaching business , head over to elevatelifecoachingorg and see how we can partner together to turn your passion into a profitable business .

I help female coaches launch and scale their coaching business faster than ever without wasted time and money , filling the gaps in your marketing strategies , creating a simple and easy to follow system so you can accelerate on the path of coaching business that you love to wake up to . Head over to elevatelifecoachingorg and grab a free strategy audit today .