Have you been told LinkedIn is a gold mine to get clients but have no idea how to approach this platform?  

That’s why we’ve created this guide on how to get coaching clients on LinkedIn — and consulting clients, too! Here’s what you’ll learn in this post:

• Why LinkedIn is great for more than just corporate, career, or business coaching
• A step-by-step strategy to get clients on LinkedIn
• 4 LinkedIn strategies coaches and consultants must avoid

What Type of Coaches Can Get Clients on LinkedIn?

Many coaches have the wrong impression of LinkedIn. They falsely believe that the only coaches who can get clients fast on this platform help their clients either with business, marketing, or their career.

And that’s not true at all!

You can still be in a non-business or career coaching niche and find clients on LinkedIn — as long as your potential clients use the platform.

For example, if you’re a parenting coach, it makes sense to use LinkedIn to find busy career-oriented parents who struggle to manage their careers and their kids at the same time. 

In the case of Miriam Mandel, MD, a teen health and wellness coach, you can see she’s doing well on LinkedIn. She has 5,856 followers, and her posts get plenty of engagement.

On the other hand, it wouldn’t make sense for a parenting coach to target stay-at-home parents who have no interest in building a business network. 

The people who spend time on LinkedIn want to network with other working professionals. If your dream clients fall into that category, there’s a good chance they’re part of the 900+ million members who use the platform!

How to Find Coaching Clients on LinkedIn 

Want to use LinkedIn to get new coaching clients? Follow this step-by-step approach to start building credibility and authority in your field!

1. Start by optimizing your LinkedIn profile

Most LinkedIn users tailor their profiles as online CVs. 

But if you’re a coach or consultant, your bio needs more than that! Consider your LinkedIn profile as a 24/7 salesperson for your brand.

To make those changes, you can focus most of your energy on two aspects of your profile: About and Featured sections.

Use your Featured section to share:

• A lead magnet to allow people to join your email newsletter
• Your most popular posts
• Links to your coaching packages and free discovery sessions  

And use your About to call out your ideal client and explain how you can help them.

Use these copywriting tips for coaches to optimize your About section!

Here’s another thing to note — LinkedIn now has Creator Mode profiles, which allow you to grow your reach on the platform. When it’s activated, your “Connect” button will change to Follow:

You can turn on Creator Mode when you’re viewing your own profile.

2. Create your engagement list

Many coaches can’t succeed on LinkedIn because they only execute half of the required strategy — posting content.

But for your content to help you land clients, you need potential clients to see it… and also engage with it! That’s why most of your LinkedIn efforts should be spent authentically engaging with other people.

Engagement means any of the following:

• Liking, commenting and reposting other people’s content
• Having DM conversations
• Responding to comments (on your own post or other people’s posts)

And before you start engaging with just about anyone, you can create your engagement list. Those are the people you’ll engage with daily.

Your engagement list should be made up of:

• Thought leaders and authority figures in your niche
• LinkedIn creators who post on topics related to yours
• Your competitors (yes, you read that right)
• People you see as potential clients

Make sure to follow these people and keep track of them in a spreadsheet or your bookmarks. You can add new people to your engagement list over time as well.

3. Engage daily

Now that you have an engagement list, it’s time to — you guessed it — engage with other people on LinkedIn!

Make sure you engage in meaningful ways. If you enjoy someone’s post, don’t just say “thanks for sharing” — instead, share your own opinion and spark a conversation.

Here’s what copywriter Jasmin Alić suggests as an engagement strategy (this helped him grow to 70,770 followers):

Of course, you don’t need to spend hours engaging every single day. But the more you spend time having genuine conversations and connections with others, the more relationships you’ll build with potential clients.

Can’t find the time to engage throughout the day? Schedule time in your own calendar to dedicate to this task. As little as 30 minutes per day can start moving the needle.

4. Post content 3-7 times weekly

Engagement is vital, but you should also post your own content on your LinkedIn page.

So what should you post?

Make sure every post is targeted toward your ideal client. If you write posts meant to appeal to everyone, you’ll ultimately appeal to no one. 

You can share helpful strategies and tips, but keep one thing in mind:

Anyone with a coaching certification can easily post “tips and tricks.” What will make you stand out from your competitors is thought-provoking content — especially if it pulls from real lived experiences.

You can do this via text, video, or a carousel post. For example, Encore Life Coach Scott Perry uses a blend of video and text posts to share valuable, thought-provoking content:

Notice how Scott uses himself as an example before going into the details of how to solve the problem he poses. He also starts his posts with an engaging question.

Hint: you can repurpose comments you’ve made elsewhere as their own standalone posts, especially if you put some thought into writing them. 

Prioritize quality content over quantity. If you only have time to create high-quality posts, then focus on that instead of trying to pump out 7 mediocre ones.

Not sure what to post about? Follow other coaches in your niche to get inspiration for some topics. But here are a few questions to help you generate ideas for your posts:

• What are some common pain points your ideal clients deal with?
• What misconceptions do people have about your area of expertise?
• How did you (or even better – a client) overcome a difficult situation?
• What breaks your heart about your area of expertise?
• Why do you do what you do?
• How is your coaching process different from other people’s and why?
• What do you do behind the scenes in your coaching business?
• What is it like to work with you?

Try implementing some carousels in your posts, too! Canva has several free LinkedIn carousel templates you can grab and customize to fit your style. You can also grab Instagram carousel templates if you prefer those designs.

5. Start DM conversations

The fastest way to land new coaching clients is to have genuine conversations with people.

Unfortunately, LinkedIn is ripe with automated outreach message blasts that suck the humanity out of the DMing experience. By doing things differently, you can build relationships with potential clients and develop some familiarity with them.

Here’s an example of what you can do if you want to start a conversation with someone in a way that feels authentic and genuine:

• Follow the person
• Start commenting on their posts (with high-value comments)
• Add comments over the span of a few days
• Send a connection request with a custom message

Instead of using the blanket statement of “Hey [name], I’d love to have you as part of my network here on LinkedIn!”…

Start the conversation with something specific about the way you’ve engaged with them over the last few days.

For example:

“Hey [name], loved your post about [topic]! [Insert a short tidbit about why you liked the post or what you learned from it]. I help [target audience] with [specific problem/solution/outcome]. Cheers!”

From there, let the conversation flow naturally. We don’t have a template or script for you to follow here because it will vastly depend on your unique relationship with that person and how you’ve engaged with them in the past.

Just remember to keep your potential client in mind when sending DMs. Ask yourself if this DM will be beneficial to them or only to you. Every DM you send should either serve to strengthen your relationship with that person or to help them in some way. In order to streamline and enhance your engagement efforts on LinkedIn, you might consider utilizing tools like LinkedHelper.com. This platform can assist you in managing your connections, automating certain outreach tasks, and organizing your engagement list more efficiently.

4 LinkedIn Strategies to Avoid

Now that you know what to do on LinkedIn to get coaching or consulting clients, let’s go over a few approaches to avoid if you want to show up as human and respectful on this platform.

1. Pitching in your invitations to connect

Invitations to connect should be used as the name implies — an invitation to “connect.” Avoid inviting people to jump on a discovery call right away.

Here’s an example of a pitch-forward LinkedIn invitation we recommend avoiding: “Hey Charlene, looking for any side gigs.”

When reading this message, it feels like this person doesn’t care about the people he reaches out to.

2. Mass sending the same invitation message to everyone

The key to getting clients on LinkedIn is to build relationships. And it’s hard to build a relationship when you blast the same templated message to hundreds of people at once.

For example, take a look at the message: 

“Hi Charlene, I’m looking to build my connections around interesting people in the freelance marketing industry. I read some of your posts and it looks like you have a lot of value to offer. I hope I can provide something similar soon. I’d like to connect.”

Apart from using a first name, this message could have been sent to anyone in the “freelance marketing industry.” While the sender does mention reading some posts, he doesn’t specify which ones.

The better approach would have been to mention a specific post by name and what was interesting about it!

3. Adding low-value comments 

If you’re trying to engage with other people on LinkedIn, avoid adding simple, meaningless comments such as:

• Great post!
• Love this!
• 👍

Instead, put some thought into your comments. Consider how will people will benefit from reading it.

4. Adding people’s email addresses to your email list without an opt-in

Finally, remember to ask for permission before you add someone to your newsletter or email list. Being connected with you on LinkedIn does not mean you have permission to use someone’s email elsewhere!

Find Your Dream Coaching Clients on LinkedIn

When it comes down to it, getting coaching clients on LinkedIn isn’t complicated. The best way to do it is to start genuine conversations with others instead of trying to “sell.” 

But when your potential clients are finally ready to work with you, it’s important to have the right systems in place to allow them to buy! That’s where Paperbell comes in. 

Paperbell is the crazy-simple way to sell your coaching online. Set up your account for free today — you only have to pay once you book your first paying client!