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190 | I’ve Spent 6 Years Getting Coaching Clients. Here’s What Works in 2026 · Women in The Coaching Arena

• 0:00
  Speaker: 58% of coaches say that getting clients is their number one challenge right now.
• 0:05
  Speaker: I do get it because the stuff that worked three or four years ago isn't working anymore.
• 0:11
  Speaker: But here is the thing that nobody talks about, the coaches who have adapted their business are having the best year of their business.
• 0:19
  Speaker: So let's talk about what they're actually doing differently.
• 0:22
  Speaker: Welcome to Women in the Coaching Arena.
• 0:24
  Speaker: I'm Jo Lott.
• 0:25
  Speaker: I have helped hundreds of qualified coaches and consultants with this very challenge.
• 0:30
  Speaker: So let me start with what's changed, because I think a lot of coaches are still following 2020 or 2021 rules in a 2026 world, and so much has changed.
• 0:44
  Speaker: When I started my business, the advice was simple: get on social media, keep posting consistently, show up every day, and clients will come.
• 0:54
  Speaker: And for a while it sort of worked, and don't get me wrong, it wasn't easy.
• 0:59
  Speaker: I still posted Every single day for six months before any clients came, and then finally, like buses, three came along at once.
• 1:09
  Speaker: But there were fewer coaches, less content out there because there was no AI, and we all had to write our own content, so the bar to entry was lower.
• 1:20
  Speaker: So now, if you are just posting on social media motivational quotes or talking about the value of coaching and hoping that someone books a discovery call, I say this really gently, it is just not a strategy anymore.
• 1:35
  Speaker: I see many coaches posting five times a week for months and still getting crickets, because social media posting is not the full story.
• 1:46
  Speaker: The game has changed, so let's talk about how.
• 1:49
  Speaker: Here's the biggest lie in our industry, just post consistently and clients will come.
• 1:55
  Speaker: Like I mentioned, I have posted five days a week on LinkedIn and did so for at least six months before any clients came, and this was back in 2020 when the game and the bar was so much lower.
• 2:10
  Speaker: I posted on LinkedIn five days a week for six months and had zero clients from it until after that six-month period.
• 2:20
  Speaker: I was so frustrated I nearly gave up, but all of the advice said stay consistent.
• 2:27
  Speaker: And like buses, three people DM'd me in the same week saying some version of, "I've been reading your posts for ages, and I think I need your help."
• 2:38
  Speaker: But that's how long it took.
• 2:39
  Speaker: So if you are posting once and expecting clients to start lining up at your door, just know that that isn't usually the norm, and be consistent because you will start getting those results as people get to know you.
• 2:56
  Speaker: So let's talk about what is actually working.
• 2:59
  Speaker: The first thing is specificity.
• 3:01
  Speaker: You being known for that specific topic matters more than ever.
• 3:07
  Speaker: So I used to talk about niching, now I talk about micro-niching, and I don't mean obsessing over the exact wording of your niche statement for three months.
• 3:17
  Speaker: I mean you personally being crystal clear about who you help and what changes for that person after they have worked with you.
• 3:26
  Speaker: When I started, I helped coaches who wanted to grow their business.
• 3:30
  Speaker: That is quite vague, quite forgettable.
• 3:34
  Speaker: I then added the word qualified coaches, because thinking about the hundreds of coaches I've worked with, every single one of them was a qualified coach.
• 3:44
  Speaker: And I found my particular angle, which is honesty, not hype.
• 3:49
  Speaker: So those two things together took it from being a really generic niche to being a really specific niche and people really understanding what they get when they work with you.
• 4:00
  Speaker: The coaches I see struggling are the ones trying to appeal to everyone, and it can just be so, so bland.
• 4:08
  Speaker: And I don't mean you have to be outrageous to stand out online.
• 4:13
  Speaker: I am totally not outrageous.
• 4:15
  Speaker: But you do need to be prepared to share your opinion, and that can feel really scary.
• 4:21
  Speaker: The second thing, and this is the big one, is what I call your marketing ecosystem.
• 4:26
  Speaker: I think about marketing in two layers, shallow marketing and deep marketing.
• 4:32
  Speaker: Shallow marketing is your social media posts, maybe your reels, your LinkedIn updates.
• 4:37
  Speaker: Someone scrolls past, maybe they like it, if you're lucky, and then moves on, usually within two to three seconds.
• 4:46
  Speaker: So that is it.
• 4:48
  Speaker: Deep nurturing is different.
• 4:50
  Speaker: It is your podcast, your articles, your blogs, your workshops, your one-on-one conversations after a networking meeting.
• 5:00
  Speaker: It's those things that actually build real trust over time.
• 5:04
  Speaker: And here's what I've noticed after working with 200 coaches.
• 5:08
  Speaker: The ones who rely only on shallow nurturing tend to really struggle because you generally need people to spend around seven hours with you to know you enough to buy from you And if you are just posting on social
• 5:24
  Speaker: media and you get their attention for one to two seconds if you're lucky, you can understand why it could take six, 12 months, two years to get them to that seven hours with you to really know you, like
• 5:38
  Speaker: you, and trust you.
• 5:39
  Speaker: And those are the three things that it takes to buy from you.
• 5:42
  Speaker: More of my clients have found me through this podcast than any single post I've ever created on LinkedIn, but that doesn't mean you don't need that shallow nurture.
• 5:52
  Speaker: Generally, people find me on LinkedIn, and then through my posts, I will take them over to my podcast.
• 6:00
  Speaker: So you often do need both the shallow and the deep to reach the right amount of people to grow your business.
• 6:07
  Speaker: When someone is spending much more time with you, maybe reading a blog post for 10 minutes, maybe listening to an episode like this for 15 minutes, they start to feel like they know you.
• 6:18
  Speaker: They have heard your thinking, your stories, your perspective, and when they are ready to invest, you are the first person that they think of.
• 6:28
  Speaker: So if you're not creating long-form content like a podcast, a YouTube channel, a newsletter, I would really encourage you to start.
• 6:38
  Speaker: It is the single biggest shift I see that is working for coaches right now.
• 6:44
  Speaker: You can also really build out your ecosystem from here.
• 6:47
  Speaker: So for example, my podcast leads to a blog post, which leads to a LinkedIn article, which leads to an email, and then leads to my social media content.
• 7:00
  Speaker: So you can build out that full ecosystem when you begin with your one long-form content.
• 7:07
  Speaker: This is unlike what most people do, and they say, "I haven't got time to write an article," because they are busy creating social posts again and again and again, and you're gonna get so much more value from creating
• 7:20
  Speaker: long-form content.
• 7:21
  Speaker: The third thing, and this might sound old-fashioned, is actual conversations.
• 7:27
  Speaker: I genuinely believe most coaches spend far too much time creating content and not enough time having conversations.
• 7:35
  Speaker: One woman found me through a blog that I'd written on imposter syndrome, connected with me on LinkedIn and said, "I've just read what you wrote, and that's exactly how I'm feeling.
• 7:47
  Speaker: Can we talk?"
• 7:48
  Speaker: Fine, she got to know me through that article, that long-form content I was just talking about, but then the next step was having a real conversation with her.
• 7:58
  Speaker: Even now, six years in with a podcast, a newsletter, and a community, real conversations are still where the magic happens, and that can be done in many, many different ways.
• 8:10
  Speaker: So for example, I have moved away from having the one-on-one sales conversations because my four-hour day doesn't really allow for it, but I make sure I hold workshops, in-person events, and other versions of connecting with real people.
• 8:27
  Speaker: I also do Loom videos when someone sends me a message, so I actually do get to talk to them in my time on my terms.
• 8:35
  Speaker: So in other words, if I'm sitting at my daughter's ballet class and I'm waiting for her to come out, I can actually still connect with somebody, which you can't always do with a four-hour working day and trying to
• 8:48
  Speaker: coordinate diaries.
• 8:50
  Speaker: So it doesn't always mean you have to have more one-on-one conversations, but you do need to know that you can, and have to, connect with real people on a human level.
• 9:01
  Speaker: A coach in my program recently started posting five times a week on LinkedIn and said that she hadn't had an inquiry yet.
• 9:09
  Speaker: And I said, "How many conversations have you had that week?"
• 9:13
  Speaker: And the answer was zero.
• 9:15
  Speaker: So have real conversations, and yes, I know it's really hard to have those conversations, and that's generally why you start with your warm network first.
• 9:25
  Speaker: Because it's really hard to get cold people who don't know you yet on the phone with you.
• 9:31
  Speaker: So don't try and skip your actual friends, family connections in real life.
• 9:38
  Speaker: You need to do that alongside building up the people that don't know you yet, so they are eventually warm leads.
• 9:45
  Speaker: So your content will open the doors, and your conversations walk people through them.
• 9:50
  Speaker: I want to be honest about something else.
• 9:52
  Speaker: I have run two big five-day challenges in my business.
• 9:56
  Speaker: Both times, I was completely burnt out and anxious by the end And the results, in all honesty, were worse than my average month.
• 10:07
  Speaker: Meanwhile, since then, my business has grown steadily through doing those boring things like creating long-form content over and over again.
• 10:16
  Speaker: So one email per week, one podcast per week, showing up on LinkedIn several times a week, and having real conversations, events, workshops, ways of really connecting with people.
• 10:30
  Speaker: Sometimes I call it compound marketing, so just like compound interest, it will build your trust.
• 10:36
  Speaker: After months and years, the effect is really remarkable and so worth your time.
• 10:43
  Speaker: Someone I really respect, Alex Hormozi, has a brilliant line, "The goal is never the outcome.
• 10:49
  Speaker: The goal is to do the thing."
• 10:52
  Speaker: And that's exactly how I think about marketing.
• 10:55
  Speaker: The goal isn't to sign five clients this month.
• 10:59
  Speaker: The goal is to have five conversations, record one podcast, send one email, do the things that are within my control over and over again, and trust that the clients will come from that.
• 11:15
  Speaker: And in my case, they certainly have.
• 11:18
  Speaker: And yes, it takes time for people to really know you, like you, and trust you, for you to build out your marketing ecosystem and for this to become easier.
• 11:28
  Speaker: But I take it, if you're like me, you're in your business for the long haul, so actually put the work in for that long haul and that compound interest to really pay off.
• 11:39
  Speaker: There has been no big breakthrough moment in my business, no viral post, no dramatic launch that just changed everything.
• 11:47
  Speaker: Just six years of doing the same things over and over again.
• 11:52
  Speaker: And I think that's actually good news because it means you don't need a big breakthrough.
• 11:57
  Speaker: You just need to keep going, and that is the hard part.
• 12:01
  Speaker: That is the part that most people can't do.
• 12:04
  Speaker: But you are not most people, and you can definitely do this.
• 12:08
  Speaker: So if you are looking for a quick fix, I am definitely not your person.
• 12:14
  Speaker: That's not to say you won't get a quick fix, but really, I want you to build a business for the long term, consistently, honestly.
• 12:24
  Speaker: When no one's watching, but still stick around, because that is actually what builds a sustainable business that works for your nervous system and for your life.
• 12:34
  Speaker: If you want to get clients in 2026, here's what I'd do this week.
• 12:39
  Speaker: First, audit your marketing ecosystem.
• 12:42
  Speaker: Are you only doing shallow marketing, like social media posts, or have you got something deeper, a podcast, a newsletter, regular networking, or following up after that networking?
• 12:54
  Speaker: If you've only got the shallow stuff, then pick one deep nurturing activity and start it this month.
• 13:02
  Speaker: Second, have five real conversations this week.
• 13:06
  Speaker: No pitches, no sales messages, just genuine conversations with people in your world.
• 13:11
  Speaker: And third, stop trying to be everywhere.
• 13:14
  Speaker: Pick one or two platforms and go deep, rather than spreading yourself across five different social platforms.
• 13:21
  Speaker: The coaches getting clients right now aren't doing anything revolutionary.
• 13:25
  Speaker: They are doing the really simple things well and consistently, with genuine, real connection and trust at the center.
• 13:34
  Speaker: So that is your new rules, specificity, a marketing ecosystem that goes deep, not just wide, and real conversations.
• 13:42
  Speaker: If this has helped you, I would love you to subscribe and leave a review.
• 13:47
  Speaker: It genuinely helps more coaches to reach this podcast.
• 13:50
  Speaker: And do come sign up to my regular newsletter called The Honest Edit, where I'll share more on these topics, plus invites to workshops and live events I run as well.
• 14:02
  Speaker: So like I always say, trust yourself, believe in yourself, and be the wise gardener who keeps on watering the seeds