17 Ways to Make Money as a Life Coach

The personal development industry is worth $9.9 billion and growing.

Life coaching services are one segment of the personal development industry. The coaching industry is worth $2.489 billion as of 2019. Marketdata estimates the total market is forecast to grow at a 5.4% average annual pace, with a brief slowdown in 2020 due to COVID.

Life Coaches have the opportunity to get more of the $9.9 billion pie by adding on one or more of these ways to make money as a life coach.

1-on-1 coaching

Provide 1-on-1 coaching services by coaching your clients once a week or three times a month. Help your clients with their goals or problems. Assist them in getting over their roadblocks and help them create a plan of action for each session.

Group Coaching Programs

Group coaching is one of the best ways to leverage your time and make more money as a coach. Instead of meeting with clients individually, you meet them in a group format. 

Group coaching is conducted with two or more people simultaneously. It’s similar to 1-on-1 coaching, except it offers group support.

Conduct a group coaching program based around your niche. Help your clients set goals, over roadblocks, and take action every session. Group coaching programs can run for 1 – 6 months or longer. They meet 1-4 times a month.

Motivational Speaking

The motivational speaker industry is worth $1.9 billion. Marketdata analysts project that the professional speaking industry’s value will grow at a 4.1% average annual pace, reaching $2.30 billion by 2025. The average motivational speaker makes $106,000 a year.

Speaking fees depend on the speaker’s experience and name recognition. Many speakers speak for free when starting and charge about $3,500 per speech when they are more experienced.

As a motivational speaker, you can host your own events and get paid to speak at other events.

Host Seminars

You can conduct seminars once a month, once a year, four times a year, it’s up to you. Charge $100 – $1000+ for a seminar. Have one to three-day seminars. Your options are endless. Seminars should be powerful and get your clients transformational results.

Host Webinars

Make money training others on personal development and how to achieve success. Webinars are similar to seminars, except they are hosted online, and because of this, they are relatively less expensive. You can host live webinars. You can also record your webinars and sell pre-recorded webinars. You can conduct live webinars once a week, once a month, once a year, four times a year; it’s up to you. You can have one to three-day webinars as well.

Online or Offline Workshops

The difference between a workshop and a seminar/webinar is that workshops are very interactive, and participants usually achieve a specific result at the end. A seminar/webinar is more lecture driven.

Conduct workshops with a specific result in mind. 

Write Personal Development Books

According to MarketResearch.com personal development books is an $800 million market that’s growing 6% per year.

Books are perfect products that will allow people to benefit from your expertise. You can write a book and sell it independently, on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other marketplaces for books. Self-publishing has become easier. For example, Amazon has a great service called Amazon KDP. This service makes it easy to publish your book independently.

You can also turn your book into an Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, or similar e-reader and sell it. You can turn it into a PDF document and sell it straight from your website. People can download your books instantly and read them on their tablets, PCs, cell phones, etc.

The fastest way to get started is to author an anthology. Think of a theme/topic and gather other coaches and experts together to write one chapter each. This is the quickest way to author your first book.

Create Personal Development Audio Books

According to the Audio Publisher’s Association, in 2018, personal development and self-help audiobook revenue reached $769 million, growing 5.6% or more per year. Over 24 million Americans now listen to audiobooks. According to Pew Research, one-in-five Americans listen to audiobooks.

Turn your book into an audiobook. An audiobook is an audio recording of a book in an abridged form. You can sell audiobooks independently, on Amazon through Audible, Barnes and Noble, and among many other marketplaces for books.

Create a Digital Course

The e-learning market was worth more than $200 billion in 2019. and is projected to be worth $325 Billion in 2025. 

Digital course is the most popular and ideal passive income stream for life coaches, business coaches, and others. 

Create courses that train others on how to achieve success in your area of expertise. For example, teach people how to discover their purpose in life, start a business, become a millionaire, lose weight, live the life of their dreams, and more.

With digital courses, people get access instantly. You can package your recordings and sell them from your website or get more eyes on it from platforms such as Udemy. 

Sell Safe-Paced Coaching Programs

Self-paced coaching programs are another great way to earn passive income as a life coach or any personal or professional coach. Self-paced coaching programs are for those who cannot afford your private coaching services or for those who are not ready for that one-on-one interaction.

The idea is to create and package a step by step signature coaching program in your niche that your clients can follow to get results. Self-paced coaching programs sell from $300 – $3000 in life coaching niches. They also sell from $1000 – $10,000+ in business coaching niches.

Corporate Training Services

Fast-paced work environments, workload, dealing with different co-workers and customers’ different personalities, juggling work and personal life, and lack of job security are the major causes of lack of productivity, tardiness, absenteeism, and burn-out within small and large companies. In recent years, employers have been incorporating more and more health and wellness programs within their company.

According to research expert John Elfein, a 2019 survey found that 83% of employers believed their company’s wellness program positively impacted workers’ health. 84% believe such programs had a positive impact on productivity performance. 

Corporate training has become a $200 billion industry, and digital corporate training takes up more than half of this amount.

As a life coach or health and wellness coach, you can contract with companies and conduct corporate training programs and workshops. Typically, these programs are in person; however, amid COVID, you can work from home, giving online training. Specialize in areas such as stress management, time management, mindfulness, emotional intelligence, customer service, health and wellness, leadership, management coaching, and more.

Consulting Services

Combine business coaching and business consulting. Consulting is when you analyze and give expert advice, typically in a business environment. This idea is excellent for business coaches. Coaches can provide hourly consulting or long term consulting services.

Mentor

Start a Mentorship Program

Provide mentoring services or start a mentorship program. Mentoring is a long-term relationship in which an experienced person helps guide a less experienced person in a specific area of their life or career. Good examples of this are career mentors, leadership mentors, and youth mentors. Mentors work with participants one-on-one and in a group setting.

Start a Membership Program (Continuity Program)

Continuity programs are great recurring revenue models. Your continuity program can be $9.99 month to $99+ a month. Below are two types of continuity programs that are best for coaches.

Monthly Membership Program

With a monthly membership program, you will regularly provide new content to your members via a membership website. Members log in and access new articles, audios, videos, checklists, ebooks, discussion forum posts, etc. To retain your members, you need to provide at least one piece of new content for your members monthly. 

Fixed-Term Membership

With a fixed-term membership, you will provide new content weekly to your members for a fixed period of time. Once all of your modules are created, this model runs fairly seamlessly. If your topic isn’t one that needs continual updating, you can create this once and resell this again and again. You’ll keep your members only for a limited time (3 months, 6 months, 12 months) 

Train and Certify Coaches

Start your own coach training school, train and certify individuals to become coaches. Training other coaches is hands down the most lucrative way to make money as a coach. You can include it as a part of your coaching or offer it as a separate program. You can certify life coaches or in other specializations. Check out our program on how to start your own coach training school.

Watch: How to Make Money as a Coach Video