Are you interested in how to build a luxury coaching brand, and working with high-end clients in your coaching business?
Coaching is an incredible way to make money online. And as you grow your coaching practice, you may develop preferences for the types of clients you want to serve. Knowing how to build a luxury coaching brand for high end coaches could take your business to the next level. But only if it’s aligned for you, and makes sense for your coaching business.
Keep reading to learn more about building a luxury brand for serving your dream clients!
How To Build A Luxury Coaching Brand For High End Coaches
Before diving into how to build a luxury coaching brand, we need to first look at what makes a successful coaching practice in general.
The coaching industry is unregulated, meaning that hypothetically anyone can become a coach and start making money. However, to have integrity in calling yourself a luxury coaching brand, you’ll want to make sure you cover a few different area for coaching excellence.
4 Elements For Being a Great Coach
#1: Thought Leader
It’s common for coaches to begin their business without a well-defined niche. However, in order to serve higher level clients, you’ll want to specialize your focus for coaching. For example, as a career coach, you may decide to focus on serving executives or founders. As a coach serving the real estate market, you may decide to serve real estate agents at a certain level of success, or focus on working with brokers.
Life coaches in particular often struggle to niche down, since their coaching is relevant to a broad audience. But if you hone in on your idea client, it will be much easier to sell your coaching, and develop authority. For example, instead of being a generic life coach, you could be…
- a life coach for working moms
- a life coach for professional athletes
- a life coach for entrepreneurs
- Etc.
See how much more compelling those are?
Read more about starting your life coaching business.
But determining your niche is only the means to the true end, which is positioning yourself as a thought leader in one area. If you had to write a white paper today, what would your interesting and unique topic be?
If your focus remains too general as a coach, it will be too hard to be seen as a thought leader in any area. Whatever niche you land on as a coach, make sure you become the expert in it.
This brings me to my next point…
#2: Years of Experience
Luxury coaching requires thought leadership, which in most cases involves developing a few years of experience.
Because the coaching industry is easy to enter, there’s a lack of emphasis in the industry on becoming the best coach you can be, and a LOT of focus in the industry of making more money. There’s definitely rising popularity in coaches who holding themselves to a higher standard, especially after 2023 when the coaching bubble softened a bit after a surge starting in 2020.
In order to offer luxury coaching, make sure you have established authority by way of client success in some area(s).
This doesn’t mean you even have to have been a coach for very long; just that you have established experience and authority in the area in which you want to offer luxury coaching.
For example, while I began coaching and marketing consulting in 2017, I wasn’t new to marketing by any means. I had over six years of digital marketing strategies and management experience (that’s a lot in “internet years”) under my belt to bring to the table. The good news is that you don’t have to be the top expert in the market.
But, you have to be able to lead your potential clients with integrity.
Additionally, years of experience improve the quality of your coaching.
As you become more experienced you develop greater emotional intelligence. A huge complaint I saw in online forums starting in 2022 was people who experienced trauma inside of coaching containers. I experienced this personally, and after I got my somatic coaching certification, I became acutely aware of when a coach wasn’t emotionally intelligent or trauma informed. It was hard to watch.
The point is: with experience and practice, you begin to understand clients’ problems and desires more thoroughly, which helps you achieve better results for clients in helping them reach their full potential.
#3: Top-Tier Service
Lastly, part of being a great coach is providing top-tier service for clients. As your business grows, so should your systems and your support for clients. Early on in your coaching business, it may be fine to send manual welcome emails, schedule calls manually, and send people the Zoom link 10 minutes before their meeting. But ultimately, all of these things should be automated or delegated. This is just one example.
Other aspects of client service include:
- how clients ask questions and receive responses,
- how clients get support between calls,
- what happens when clients approach the end of their term,
- how you collect referrals,
- content you create for supporting clients between calls,
- and more.
While customer support may not be at the top of your to-do list, it’s a critical component in a relentless pursuit of excellence in your business. And if you want to offer luxury coaching, you should move this to the top of your priorities.
#4: Website Experience
Lastly, as your client base and business systems grow, your website should become a bigger priority regardless of your website traffic. Initially, your website may be as simple as a landing page so people can find out more information about you. But eventually, your website becomes a place to support your authority and thought leadership. A website is a key component to marketing as well.
Here are some tips for providing a good website experience as a coaching business:
- Make sure your website is mobile-friendly and easy to navigate. Many people will be accessing your site on their phones and tablets. Use a clean, simple layout with clear calls-to-action.
- Share clear information about your coaching services, areas of expertise, methodology/approach, credentials, and testimonials upfront so visitors quickly understand what you offer.
- Use warm, welcoming language that lets visitors get a sense of your personality. As a coach, you want to come across as approachable and trustworthy.
- Offer a free intro or assessment session so prospective clients can get to know you before committing. This allows you to demonstrate your value.
- Include client success stories, case studies, or transformation journeys that visitors can relate to. This helps build trust.
- Blog regularly with helpful coaching tips, inspirational ideas, or practical advice based on the issues your clients face. This provides value and establishes your authority.
- Make it easy for visitors to find and access whatever they may be looking for – contact info, scheduling, pricing, FAQs, etc. Confusing or hard-to-use websites will turn visitors away.
- Offer different ways for prospects to get in touch – contact form, online scheduling, email, chat box etc. Cater to different preferences.
On a side note, there are also some technical things on the website that need to be in order. Make sure you are aware the laws and regulations around of your use of cookies and user data on your website. If these terms don’t mean anything to you, I would consult another content creator or website expert.
The key is crafting an experience focused on the visitors and your potential luxury coaching. Provide value, empathy and resources that can help them rather than just promoting yourself. This fosters connections and relationships.
See some great website examples and get some tips for elevating your website experience.
Offering Luxury Coaching
First Step To Becoming a Luxury Coaching Business
The first step to knowing how to become a luxury coach is identifying your niche area of expertise, like I mentioned above. Define the premium segment you best understand, and make sure you have the credentials to establish your authority. Enroll in advanced training programs oriented toward that niche to further develop specialized skills. Get certified where possible.
Working With Luxury Businesses
Luxury business is unlike others in that relationships, personalization and discretion are fundamental. Consumers of high-end, premium goods and services expect white-glove treatment and for their specific wants and tastes to be understood and catered to.
As a luxury coach, you have to grasp the nuances of exceptional customer service and what drives selective clients. The first step is taking a closer look at your own past experiences working with coaches or other programs.
- What about the process felt seamless?
- What could have been smoother?
- What did you find helpful?
- What felt like fluff?
- How did you want to engage with the coach?
- What systems did the coach have?
- How could the experience have bee elevated?
- What did you think of how the coach presented themselves?
Instead of copying what you see others do, aim to improve, innovate, and be creative.
Additionally, as you market your luxury coaching, you’ll want to understand the inner circle or circles that your ideal clients are involved in.
This not only becomes a “watering hole” for new connections, but will help you better relate to your avatar.
Luxury Markets
One thing I’ve noticed about high ticket coaching is that buyers are still buying even amid broader economic downturns. For example, one of my newer clients successfully sold $25,000 life coaching packages to startup founders, when many others were struggling to sell. In my experience, even when the market is unstable, there are still people able to pay premium pricing for coaching. And, if you become a thought leader and are able to specialize, opportunities persist for expansion despite market saturation.
The keys are having both depth on the specific premium niche and appreciation of the luxury business broadly – along with knowing how to guide clients accordingly. This facilitates commanding the highest caliber of coaching fees.
All this to say: I think you can provide a luxury experience in just about any coaching niche. But some examples of niches where I often see high ticket packages are:
- Career coaching
- Specialized life coaching
- Business coaching
- Marketing coaching
- Relationship coaching
- Health coaching (weight loss, nutrition, performance)
- Mindset coaching
Within these, it’s important to choose your main target. For example, “business coaching” doesn’t mean a ton, but “business coach for real estate brokers” is very specialized.
There’s obviously a BUNCH of other coaching niches. And like I said, I really think any of them can be luxury if you make it luxury. Whether or not you charge high prices depends on whether or not people buy from you at those prices, and whether or not you get results.
(For example: it might be my opinion that it’s harder to charge high ticket for “self esteem coaching”, but my opinion doesn’t matter if you believe in the idea, can sell it, and get results. Which people have definitely done!)
Understanding Industry Professionals
Your clients are industry professionals who deal with demanding, affluent consumers daily. A luxury real estate agent has very different needs than a dealer of rare diamonds or a hospitality manager overseeing 5-star guest experiences. Understand the distinct challenges these individuals face to provide tailored coaching. From networking amongst VIP circles to sourcing scarce materials to managing heightened service expectations, you must offer guidance that resonates with their reality.
Premium Prices
One reason why many coaches love the idea of serving a higher end client involves their desire for charging higher rates. Premium prices characterize the luxury arena, both on the consumer side and operational side.
Your pricing helps your coaching offer to feel, and literally be, more exclusive. Make sure the price is justified through the experience you provide, and the results you help clients achieve.
Read more about pricing your products and services.
Packages can range from $500 per hour to over $25K per year (or even much more) for retained, on-call access.
The perceived value must align with what high-end clients are accustomed to paying for specialized expertise or services in their own industries. Be confident charging rates mirroring the elevated market you serve.
Focusing On Luxury Summary
Transforming your coaching business into a luxury coaching brand requires specialization in your focus, and intention with how you present yourself and your business online.
Curate your identity.
Create an exclusive experience for your clients.
And remember, the journey to luxury status is not just about raising your prices for the sake of raising them, but about delivering unparalleled value and exceeding expectations.
Need help discovering your niche and charging luxury pricing?
