Why Your Coaching Website Isn't Getting You Clients
If your coaching website isn’t getting you clients, the problem may not be your branding, your photos, your colors, or whether you have a video at the top of the page.
The bigger question is: Can someone land on your website and immediately understand the problem you help them solve—in words they would actually use?
Your potential clients don’t need more coaching language. They need to recognize themselves and their problem. If you can clearly explain what you do in two sentences using your client’s language, your website—and the rest of your marketing—has a much better chance of doing its job.
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About This Episode
You can have beautiful branding, professional photos, great colors, and a slick website and still have potential clients leave without booking a call.
In this episode of Getting Coaches Paid, I’m talking about the one thing your coaching website needs to do: clearly explain the problem you solve using the language your clients already use.
Coaches have a tendency to describe their work in coach-speak. We talk about holding space, creating transformation, providing accountability, or use terminology we learned in certifications and coaching groups. Other coaches may know exactly what we mean. Our clients may not.
I’ll show you why client language matters, how industry terminology can create distance instead of connection, and why being able to explain what you do in two simple sentences matters far beyond your website.
Because when you know how to articulate the problem you solve—and what makes the way you solve it different—your website gets clearer. Your networking gets easier. Your social media gets easier. And your marketing starts working together instead of feeling like a collection of disconnected pieces.
What You’ll Learn
Why a beautiful coaching website can still fail to generate clients
The one thing potential clients need to understand when they land on your website
Why coaching jargon can make your message less clear
How to tell whether you’re using your language or your client’s language
Why getting clear about the problem you solve makes the rest of your marketing easier
Questions This Episode Answers
Why isn't my coaching website getting me clients?
Your website may look great and still not answer the question your potential client cares about most: Can this person help me with the problem I have right now?
Branding photos, colors, videos, and good content can all support your marketing. But none of them can replace a clear explanation of what you actually help people do.
When someone lands on your website, they shouldn’t have to translate your message or understand coaching terminology to figure out whether you can help them. They should recognize their problem in your words.
Before worrying about another website redesign, look at the actual message on the page. Can a potential client quickly understand the problem you solve and how you help?
How should I explain what I do as a coach?
Try explaining it in two sentences.
Seriously. Two.
What problem do you help your clients solve? Say it out loud without relying on your coaching title, certifications, methodology, or phrases another coach would understand but your uncle probably wouldn’t.
Then ask yourself: Are these the words my clients use?
Saying, “I hold space for people” may make perfect sense inside the coaching industry. Outside of it? Someone may wonder what kind of space you’re holding.
Clear marketing starts with clear human language. Your client needs to understand what changes because they work with you—not simply what you call yourself or the coaching process you use.
Should I put my coaching certifications on my website?
Your certifications can establish credibility, but they aren't the first thing most potential clients need to know.
They want to know whether you can help them solve the problem they have.
Think about hiring someone to replace a window in your house. You probably don't want the conversation to begin with technical terminology about glass that you don't understand. You want the contractor to understand why you need a new window and what you want that window to do.
Your coaching clients are similar. Your qualifications matter, but leading with certification language can force potential clients to translate your expertise before they understand its relevance.
Start with their problem. Then show them why you're qualified to help.
How do I know if I'm using too much coaching jargon?
Imagine explaining what you do to someone who isn't a coach.
Would they understand you?
Words and phrases that feel completely normal inside coaching communities can sound vague to potential clients. “Holding space” is a perfect example. Coaches know what that means. A person outside the industry may not.
Look at your website through your client's eyes. Pay attention to words you learned through certifications, programs, coaching communities, or professional development.
Then ask how your client describes the same situation before they ever meet you. Their version may be less polished, but that's exactly why it's useful. Those are the words they're already thinking, saying, and searching.
Do I need a better website before I start marketing my coaching business?
Not necessarily.
Being able to clearly explain the problem you solve is more important than having a perfect website.
When you can articulate what you do, you can take that message into a networking group. You can use it on social media. You can say it in a conversation with a potential client. You can put it on a simple website.
That clarity travels with you.
Your website is one place your message lives. It isn't the message itself. Before spending more time fixing colors, images, layouts, or videos, make sure the words tell your potential clients what they actually need to know.
What Endotype Changes About This
Your marketing should not require you to become a generic version of what you think a coach is supposed to sound like.
Part of building a business that works is understanding what you uniquely and differently bring to your clients. Once you can articulate that clearly—and connect it to a problem your clients already know they have—the rest of your marketing becomes much easier to build around it.
Your message needs to sound like something your clients understand while still reflecting the way you actually help them.
What Might Be Getting in the Way
Sometimes the problem isn't that you don't know how to coach. It's that you've become so familiar with coaching language that you don't realize you're using it.
You may also be trying to make your website sound more professional, sophisticated, or impressive. That can accidentally make a simple message complicated.
Or you may be focusing on the easier-to-see pieces: changing colors, choosing another photo, adding a video, tweaking your website design.
Those things aren't inherently bad. They just can't do the work of a clear message.
You don't need to make what you do sound bigger. You need to make it easier for the right person to understand.
Your Next Action Step
Give yourself 30 minutes and open the homepage of your website.
Without changing the design, write down the answer to this question:
What problem do I help my clients solve?
You get two sentences.
Then read those sentences and circle every word or phrase that sounds like something a coach would say rather than something your client would say.
Rewrite those phrases using the words you've actually heard clients use when describing the problem.
That's it. Don't redesign the website today. Get the message clear first.
Want Help Taking the Next Step?
If you're struggling to clearly explain what you do, this is exactly the kind of problem I help coaches solve.
A Connection and Direction Call is a complimentary 20-minute conversation where we can look at what you're currently saying, talk through where you're getting stuck, and determine what kind of support makes sense.
If you need focused help, a CSI Call—Clarity, Strategy, and Impact—is a one-time 90-minute session that may be all the support you need.
You can also take the Endotype Formula Quiz to learn more about how you're naturally wired to build your business
About Laura Hulleman
Laura Hulleman is the founder and creator of the Endotype Formula and host of Getting Coaches Paid. She helps coaches understand themselves, their clients, and the way they naturally build their businesses so they can create an income and impact they are proud of.
Episode Transcript
Laura Hulleman:
Today we're going to talk about the one thing—the one thing that needs to happen on your website to make people actually book instead of bounce.
This was a question that came up in a coaching group that I'm in recently: When someone lands on your website page, what's the one thing that actually makes them book with you instead of bounce?
“I'm curious what's working for others.”
Great question, right?
There are a lot of people in that group who are offering services to coaches. I'm one of them. Hi, hello, it's me.
The answers included a quick video hook, being specific about what you do, your content, and lots of other kind of generalized answers.
Would you like to understand the one thing?
It's not your branding picture. It's not your branding colors. All of those are important, but if there was one thing that you could get right—and I've seen it over and over again with the coaches that I work with, the over 150 coaches that I have interviewed on my podcast, and the over 400 coaches that have taken the Endotype Quiz—what's that one thing?
The one thing is: You talk about how you solve the problem that your clients are having right now, and you use their words.
So when I say “how you solve,” some of you just heard, “Oh, they want to hear about my certifications.”
No, they don't. They don't.
Most clients don't care about your certifications. They care about your qualifications. They care about whether or not you can do the things that you say you can do, but they don't care about your certifications.
They want to know that you can help them with the problem that they're having right now.
What is the problem you fix as a coach?
Oh, coaches, don't be so upset when I use the word “fix.” Because you do help them fix a problem, don't you? Otherwise, why are they working with you?
I understand they do the work, and you hold space, and you provide accountability.
You help them fix a problem.
Okay. What's the problem that you help them fix?
Be clear. Say it in two sentences right now.
I'm going to be quiet for just a second. You say it out loud. Two sentences is all you're allowed.
Okay.
Are those the words that your clients use? The way that you just said it—are those the words that your clients use?
Is that the way they describe the problem?
What do I mean by that?
Well, we're going to go back to an old illustration that I use.
If I bring somebody over to my house and I say, “I would like this window replaced. See how this window needs to be replaced? I want it replaced.”
And they're like, “Well, ma'am, we've got EV glass, we've got vacuum-packed glass, we can put special gas inside your two windowpanes. Do you want a double, triple, blah, blah, blah?”
And they use contractor language.
It makes me less likely to use them than if a contractor showed up and said, “Okay, so you want a new window. Why do you want a new window for this space? What do you want the window to be able to do here? Do you want it to match this window over on this side of the room? I notice it doesn't really open right now. Do you get a lot of sun in this window? Do you want it to block some of the heat and the UV?”
See, they're using language that's consumer-based language.
You frequently—and coaches in general—will start using coachy language that you learn through your certifications or that we learn by being in groups of coaches.
I had one client where I asked, “How do you describe what you do?”
His response was, “I hold space for other people.”
Now, as a coach, you probably know exactly what that means. But can you imagine saying that to your uncle?
“What do you do for work?”
“I hold space for other people.”
Like parking spaces? What kind of space do you hold?
That's not a clear answer. It's not good marketing at all.
On websites, I see people who are confidence coaches. I see people who are trauma coaches. That's the first thing you see on their website, and I don't see them describing what they do utilizing the language of their clients and describing the problem that they solve with their clients.
That's the one thing.
If you can't, in two sentences, utilizing clear human language—language that your clients use—explain what it is that you do and how you do that, then I don't care if you have a video. I don't care if you have good branding pics. I don't care if you have great colors.
I don't really care.
Because if I can articulate what it is that I do, even if my website's busted, I can go into a networking group right now and I can get myself clients.
I can go out on social media platforms right now and I can get myself clients because I can articulate the problem they have.
Is this a problem you have?
Yeah? Maybe?
If, in listening to this episode, you're like, “Ooh, I don't know how well I'm doing,” that would be a place where you and I need to have a Connection and Direction Call, because this is the problem I help my clients solve.
Yes, I do branding. Yes, I help you with your colors. Yes, I help you with your stock images and create social media platforms and find great quotes and use great quotes and figure out a strategy.
Are you going to be a speaker or a podcaster? What are you going to do?
I help with all of that.
But before we do any of it, you need to be able to clearly express what it is you do—how you help uniquely and differently.
“I hold space.”
So does every coach out there.
How do you help uniquely and differently than any other coach?
And you need to be able to do so utilizing the language that your clients use.
Once we have that—the unique thing that only you can do—all the rest of your marketing not only gets a whole lot easier, it gets a whole lot quicker and more fun.
And it works.
So if you are a coach right now who would like to get paid more for what you do, who would like a steady stream of clients coming into your business, and who recognizes that maybe you're not doing so well when you describe the problem you solve for your clients, it's time to schedule a Connection and Direction Call with me.
That's a quick 20-minute call, totally complimentary.
We'll review what it is that you say. I'll give you some feedback. If there's some alignment for us to work together, maybe it's one of the CSI Calls.
It's a one-time, 90-minute Clarity, Strategy, and Impact Call. And in 90 minutes, that might be all the help you need.
You might not need one of the bigger marketing packages that I offer.
If you want a CSI Call, it is on my website. The link is there.
If a Connection and Direction Call feels better for you—having a face-to-face conversation over Zoom for 20 minutes—I am happy to offer that complimentary to you right now.
Figure out the one thing: how to explain what you do using your client's language.
If you can do that, my friend, you can have a profitable coaching business.
