This is What Happens When Freelancers Get Coaching
How does personal coaching help freelancers?
Personal coaching is a shortcut to freelance success. Your personal coach will give you expert advice, cheer you on, and help you reach your goals.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
I’ve got a confession to make: I never wanted to offer coaching. When I started developing my online course, Finding the Freelance Clients You Deserve, I planned to make it self-study.
You see, I didn’t think I could be nice enough to be a good coach.
Expert Advice Convinced Me to Try Coaching
But I was taking a course on how to develop an online course—because learning from the experts is always easier and more efficient than trying to figure everything out alone. The course focused on starting with a pilot course with coaching. So I did.
Here’s what I learned: Coaching was the best part of the course—for my students and for me.
The coaching inspired the freelancers I worked with. Their confidence skyrocketed. Knowing that they could learn freelance marketing and get the clients they deserve, and I would be there to guide them in doing this, motivated them to do the coursework. I got feedback that helped me improve the course.
What I learned by coaching freelancers will help you see that you’re probably closer to freelance success than you think you are. And if you’re thinking about getting some coaching, you’ll see:
- How coaching has helped other freelancers
- What they think about before deciding to work with a coach.
1. Coaching Helps Freelancers Build Confidence
Do you think that you’re not good enough or don’t know enough to succeed in freelancing? Many freelancers do.
Poised for Success
Before Kathleen Labonge took Finding the Freelance Clients You Deserve, she wasn’t sure that she had what it takes to succeed as a freelance medical copyeditor. Kathleen had been freelancing for two years but she lacked the confidence to approach prospective clients.
After reviewing Kathleen’s intake survey and chatting with her in our first conference call, I knew that Kathleen had a stronger background for medical copyediting than she thought she did, and more relevant experience.
As a board-certified medical technologist with an MBA, Kathleen had relevant experience in medicine and an understanding of the business needs of clients. Her copyediting certificate from the University of California-San Diego and experience in editing two magazines gave her strong practical experience.
We worked together to develop marketing messages to attract Kathleen’s ideal clients, and to present her background to focus on how her copyediting can benefit those clients.
“Working with Lori as my personal coach was the single best decision I’ve made since starting my own business. I no longer am floundering around all over the map trying to find clients to work with. I now have a plan of attack,” says Kathleen.
“The knowledge and confidence I gained from Lori’s mentoring enabled me to build a successful freelance business.”
Read Kathleen’s case study.
Confidence Attracts Better Clients
Eva Stabenow, CT (EN-DE) had been a freelance translator and conference interpreter for 21 years when she took Finding the Freelance Clients Your Deserve. She was doing okay, but had been undervaluing her services because she didn’t know how to get the clients she deserved.
Together, Eva and I developed a marketing plan customized to her business, Wordplay Translations, LLC. We built on what she had already done: a great company name, her tagline (Communicating Ideas Across Cultures), and her logo.
As Eva’s confidence surged, she began to attract better clients—before she even finished the course. Now, Eva’s pursuing freelance jobs that she would have been too intimidated to go after before—and getting them.
“People perceive me differently,” she says. “I’ve been able to access and seize an amazing number of opportunities,” she says.
Read Eva’s case study.
See Your Potential
Like Kathleen and Eva, you probably have a lot more going for you than you realize—and no reason to lack confidence about your ability to succeed in freelancing.
2. Coaches are Cheerleaders for Freelancers
Growing up, I climbed trees, played softball, swam competitively, and liked playing with boys more than girls. I thought cheerleaders were silly.
As a coach, I realized that I had become a cheerleader for my students (without the short skirt or the pom-poms).
I believed in Kathleen, Eva, and my other students. During the course, I cheered them on, celebrated their successes, and encouraged them to reach their goals.
3. Coaching Helps Freelancers Succeed Faster
From Clueless to Focused on What Works Best
Christina is right. When I started out in freelancing in 1997, I had to figure out how to market my freelance business by myself. The Internet was in its infancy back then and my only resources were books and networking with other freelancers.
In my first marketing campaign, I targeted hundreds of prospective clients that would never hire me because I don’t have the background for the type of work they do. It took a lot of work to find my best target markets and figure out how to attract clients in these target markets.
Now I’ve figured out what works best for freelancers in finding clients and put it into a proven 7-step process. Through coaching, I help you customize the process to your business, your goals, and your needs—so you can start getting the high-paying clients you deserve without going through what I went through.
Expert Guidance on Finding the Right Clients
When Mia DeFino took Finding the Freelance Clients You Deserve in 2016, she was a brand new freelance medical and science writer. Mia had two clients, but they weren’t paying her enough for her work. “I needed to get different types of clients in order to be successful, but it was hard for me to figure out how to get there on my own,” she says.
Through personalized coaching, which includes review of key assignments in the course, two marketing reports, and two coaching sessions, Mia learned how to find the right clients. She narrowed down her specialty to what she does best and developed marketing messages that focus on her target clients and how she meets their needs.
“Marketing will be a lot easier and less intimidating for me now that I know how to find clients who will pay me well to do the work I want to do,” she says.
Read Mia’s case study.
Accountability Boosts Results
After freelancing for a few years, Erik MacLaren, PhD realized that he was spending too much of his time doing work that wasn’t very interesting and didn’t pay well.
The owner of Galen Medical Writing, Erik had taken self-study courses on freelancing, but was finding it difficult to get motivated to do what he was learning.
By taking the coaching version of Finding the Freelance Clients You Deserve,which had deadlines for completing assignments for my review, he was able to make marketing a priority.
“This made it easier for me to give new work behaviors priority and incorporate them into my regular schedule,” he says. “I feel much more confident that I will be able to locate clients that need my services and engage them now.”
Read Erik’s case study.
4. Freelancers are Skeptical About Coaching
Gurus, experts, and coaches are everywhere these days—and many of them are making outlandish promises. One says freelancers can make 250k a year. Another has a system for getting new clients in 30 days. Others promise that it’s easy to make lots of passive income by developing and selling information products.
These results are unrealistic or as Oki Dzivenu, DPhil, ELS says, “outlandish.”
“Unlike other businesses coaches who make outlandish promises to lure unsuspecting students, Lori never shied away from emphasizing that, if you put in the work, you’ll get the results you want and deserve,” says Oki, owner of Exquisite Medical Scribe, LLC.
Read Oki’s case study.
Will Finding the Freelance Clients You Deserve Work for You?
I’m very upfront about Finding the Freelance Clients You Deserve. My course description says you can “start creating a successful freelance business in just 7 weeks” because doing this takes time.
While some students, including Oki and Eva, have gotten new clients while taking the course, this usually takes more than 7 weeks too.
And the course is a lot of work. That’s why the course description has a section called “Will the Course Work for Me?” The answer is:
“Yes, if you’re willing to put in the time and effort.”
Freelancers who do the work, like Kathleen, Eva, Christina, Mia, Erik, and Oki are building stable, successful freelance businesses.
Read the case studies.
But if you’re looking for an easy, effortless way to get great clients instantly, then the course isn’t for you.
Read the Case Studies
