Today I’m walking you through the 5-step method I used to get my first clients and it’s the exact process I now teach my own clients who are just getting started. If you’ve been wondering how to stop spinning your wheels and finally get your first clients, this method will give you a clear and simple path forward.

The 5-step method is called F.O.C.U.S., and it’s perfect to help you get your first clients or to help you get MORE clients if you’re already a seasoned coach.

When I first started my coaching business, I wasted way too much time doing things that didn’t actually bring in clients. I obsessed over logos, played around with websites, and tinkered with business cards.

The truth is, none of that got me paid.

What finally worked was a simple five-step method that got me my very first paying clients and later became the framework I now teach to new coaches who are just getting started.

I call it the F.O.C.U.S. Method. It’s designed to cut through the noise, get your business off the ground, and help you build real momentum. These are the exact steps I used to make my first $1,000 in coaching, and they still work every time I feel like I need to quickly grow my client roster.

If you’re tired of spinning your wheels and want a straightforward way to get your first clients, let’s walk through F.O.C.U.S. together.

• Before You Get Your First Clients
  • Step 1: FOUNDATION
  • Step 2: OFFER
  • Step 3: COLLECT NO’s
  • Step 4: UNDERPROMISE, OVERDELIVER
  • Step 5: SOCIAL PROOF
• Why the F.O.C.U.S. Method Works to Get Your First Clients
• Success Stories: Coaches Who Used the F.O.C.U.S. Method
• FAQ: Using the FOCUS Method for Getting Your First Clients
• Episode Transcript

It’s perfect for getting your first clients or any time you need to quickly grow your paying client roster!

The 5-step method is called F.O.C.U.S. and it looks like this:

Make sure that you are officially set up to operate as a business, legally and financially. (**Please note: This is not legal of financial advice because I’m not a lawyer or an accountant)

Make sure that you are officially set up to operate as a business, legally and financially.
(**Please note: This is not legal of financial advice because I’m not a lawyer or an accountant)

What this step includes is making sure that in the eyes of your city, county, state, etc that you are legally authorized to be in business. Where I am, this requires a business license from the county which involves filling out an application and submitting it with a yearly fee.

To get this license, it means your business has an official business name.

RELATED: 5 Things You Need to Know Before You Name Your Health Coaching Business

Choose a name that is clear about what you do. Something like: “ Wellness/Fitness/Health” is clear and to the point. You are the coach, what you provide is help with health, wellness, and or fitness.

BOOM, DONE.

Legal note: You may choose to create an LLC before you take on any clients. I didn’t, I waited until I was further along in the process because an LLC is not a requirement to be in business.

I operated as a sole proprietor at first and got a Tax ID from the IRS.

Financially, you want to make sure you are keeping your business finances separate from your personal finances with a separate bank account and later on a separate business credit card for future expenditures. You’ll need your EIN from the IRS for this business account, which you can get online.

You’ll also want a way to track your business expenses as you go, trust me, you will thank yourself at tax time for keeping it organized from day 1! You can use something basic like a Google sheet or excel spreadsheet.

You’ll need to set up a way to take payment that is separate from your personal Paypal or Venmo account if you have one. I use Stripe and have been very happy with it.

Now before you take any payment from clients you’ll want to make sure you are covered in a worst case scenario by having insurance, waivers for clients to sign, and/or client agreement forms.

These will look different based on what type of a business you are running so I always recommend checking with the organization that provided your certification to see if they have standard forms or templates to use and then having a lawyer review your client documents to make sure they’re going to cover you legally.

(Notice i didn’t say build a fancy website, spend hundreds of dollars (or hours!) creating a logo, spending money you haven’t made yet on business cards, or any of the stuff that really is not going to directly help you get your first clients!)

I have seen way too many coaches get hung up on, and spend days/weeks/months in the busy-work of websites and business cards before they’ve even gotten a client.

Foundation step is all about setting your business up as an official entity and setting up an organized way to manage your clients and your cash.

Outline who you help, how you help, and how long you’ll be working together during this 30-Day Jumpstart.

Keep this **super** simple. I know a lot of coaching organizations tell their grads to offer a 3 month program and a 6 month program but when you’re starting out, that can be a hard sell for both you and your clients.

Offer a 30-day jumpstart program to get your feet wet, add a few bucks to your bank account, and gain a TON of clarity and confidence in yourself as a coach.

Your goal is to get your first clients to work with you for the minimum amount of time needed for them to make some progress, see results, and be excited enough about what’s happening that they want to tell others about their experience working with you.

Once you have a handful of testimonials, you can change your offer but for this method, offer a 30-day jumpstart for a specific outcome that you feel passionate about helping people achieve. Quitting smoking, getting active, eating healthier, having more energy, feeling less stressed… anything!

When you are starting this can be really hard. You’re a health coach – you can help anyone! But what you’re going to find out if you haven’t already is that a specific offer and outcome is going to make it a lot easier for clients to see the value of what you do.

I won’t get too deep in the weeds here about niching down but just know that if you can put together something specific that a potential client can visualize themselves achieving and this particular change would be meaningful in their life, it’s going to be a lot easier to get clients to say YES to a 30-day sprint than a 6-month marathon.

Remember, this offer isn’t forever, it’s just for RIGHT NOW. it’s going to change, and it should! But the purpose of this offer statement is to help you get your first 3-5 clients so that you can get experience, gain confidence, get clarity, have impact, and make some money! Otherwise this is just a pricey hobby, right?

Here’s a sample FOCUS offer: “I’m looking for 5 busy moms who are looking to have more energy in 30 days so they can keep up with their kids and not collapse on the couch at bedtime. Who’s in?”

Create your offer by stating a specific number of client slots you want to fill, a specific demographic and something that you know they’d really love to achieve and a set number of days in which you can help them see those results.

One of the best things you can do early in your business is desensitize yourself to hearing the word NO. Your job when you pitch your services isn’t to sign a client, but to get them to make a decision.

Sometimes that decision is not to work with you and that’s ok. (I promise that most of the time, it is not personal!)

You’re looking for potential clients who fit the bill: they are a specific demographic, in a certain age range, who want the outcome you’re offering, and are ready to show up, invest the funds, time and energy to make some lifestyle changes in the next 30 days.

That’s kind of a tall order and not everyone you ask is going to check all of those boxes. That’s ok!

Think of ‘No’ as ‘Not Now’ or ‘that’s not me’ and it’s easier to see that their NO has very little to do with you.

It could also be you haven’t done enough to gain their trust yet – either they don’t know you as a coach, a person, or someone who gets results and they’re not willing to extend the trust just yet.

That’s also ok.

I’ve worked with hundreds of coaches starting their business and the thing I see impacting their lack of clients is being too passive in making offers.

They fail to make themselves, their business, or their offer visible to potential clients. They either assume that people know what they do and will reach out if they want help (NOPE!) or think an occasional post on FB is seen by (and remembered by!) their entire friend’s list and they don’t want to be annoying so they fail to share this info often on social media (Definitely not true!).

Or they automatically assume that the people they know are not interested in the specifics of the offer, can’t afford it, or wouldn’t want to work with us.

What we do using the FOCUS method is Actively Collect Rejection. We reach out to anyone that fits the criteria of the offer and let them tell US no. We don’t count anyone out, we stay out of their pockets, we don’t decide for them if they’re ready for change.

So make a list of 50 contacts in your personal network – friends, neighbors, FB contacts and reach out to them with the offer.

If they say Yes, you have a new client!

If they say No, great! You’re one step closer to the 5 who will say yes!

***Don’t forget to ask them if they’d be willing to pass on the information to anyone they know who might be a great fit!

*You can also share this in your Facebook Group if you have one!

Win/win!

I know I did the exact opposite of this when I was starting out and it’s a big mistake!

You book a client and promise them the moon and stars – why yes….you DO offer 24/7 support …and video content… and ebooks and everything they want… till you find out that logistically and energetically, that doesn’t align with how you really want to run your business or you simply can’t deliver and then it can be really disheartening and disappointing for you and the client.

A much better option is to offer the basics that will get your client results – coaching sessions, email support, and worksheets… and then surprise and delight them with extras throughout the program.

This makes for a much better client experience and they’re more likely to stay engaged with your coaching, get results, and provide you with a solid gold testimony!

Social proof is such an amazing and important sales tool. The more testimonials you collect and share after you get your first clients, the easier it is to get more clients. I have personally seen this in my own business – at some point, the results speak for themselves.

Here’s the deal… your business is based on sales, and sales are based on TRUST.

If someone trusts you, they’re more likely to hire you.

If they don’t trust you, they’re not buying.

Simple as that.

But how do you gain trust? It needs to be built.

Cultivated… developed.

Trust is created one interaction at a time… it but it’s a lot easier (and faster!) to ‘borrow’ trust than it is to build it from scratch.

When you’re first starting out, your *Circle of Trust* (those that know you, like you, and trust you enough to hire you) is pretty much your direct personal network, plus your Facebook friends. (I’m referring to your personal profile where you have friends, not your business page where you get likes and follows!)

This is why we start with this list when we’re collecting No’s with our FOCUS offer!

When happy clients provide testimonials that you can then share with other potential clients, you’re demonstrating that you’ve been trusted by others and then delivered results.

There’s a lot behind the psychology of testimonials – you’ve probably experienced it yourself if you’ve ever shopped online -you check out the reviews of products before you buy and can be convinced to buy or not buy based on what total strangers have said.

Now imagine how much more powerful a testimonial is when it’s provided by someone your potential client can relate to and it demonstrates how you were pivotal in the process.

Testimonials allow you to leverage the trust you’ve already built to create trust in potential clients.

This method removes the guesswork and shows you how to start small, build momentum, and create the trust you need to get your first clients.

To recap:

I used this method to generate $1k in my business after trying (and failing!) to get up and running for months! I’ve shared this with other coaches and they are always shocked by how easy it is to get clients when they just ASK!

One of my favorite things about teaching this method is seeing how quickly other coaches get results when they put it into action.

Here are two podcast interviews with coaches who used the F.O.C.U.S. method to land their first clients:

These are real examples of how simple and effective this process can be. If you’re struggling to get your first clients, listening to their stories will show you what’s possible when you stay consistent, keep things simple, and trust the process.

Q: How long will it take me to get my first clients using the F.O.C.U.S. method?
Most coaches who follow the steps consistently are able to land their first clients within 30 days. Some do it faster, depending on how proactive they are about making offers and collecting No’s.

Q: Do I need a website before I can get my first clients?
No! You don’t need a website, a fancy logo, or business cards to start. The F.O.C.U.S. method is designed to help you get paying clients quickly without spending weeks or months on setup.

Q: What if I’m nervous about selling my services?
That’s normal. The great thing about this method is that you don’t have to be “salesy.” You’re simply sharing an offer that helps people. By focusing on collecting No’s, you’ll quickly learn that rejection isn’t personal, and you’ll feel more confident with every conversation.

Q: Do I need to be certified to get my first clients?
Not necessarily. Many coaches start by helping people with areas where they already have experience. That said, having a certification can add credibility, especially as you grow your business.

Q: Can I use this method even if I already have clients?
Absolutely. The F.O.C.U.S. method isn’t just for beginners. It’s also a great way to quickly fill spots when you want to add new clients to your roster.

Welcome, everyone. I’m really excited because in this episode, I’m going to be walking you through my five-step method that I use to get my first clients, and it’s what I teach my own clients who are just getting started.

It’s perfect for getting your very first clients or really any time you need to quickly grow your paying client roster. This five-step method is what I call focus, and it looks like this. Step one, F stands for foundation.

Keep in mind, I am not a lawyer, I am not an accountant. This is not financial or legal advice. I recommend that you speak to both of these qualified professionals as it pertains to your business, but I’m just giving you an idea of what I did.

In the foundation, you want to make sure that you are operating legally in the eyes of your city, county, state, etc., I’m in the U.S., that you’re legally authorized to be in business. Now, where I am, this requires having a business license and filling out a form and submitting it to the county and paying a yearly fee. Now, to get this license, it means that your business has to have an official name, and what I’ve seen a lot of coaches do is get stuck on this part.

Keep in mind that your business name does not have to be your program name, it does not have to be what’s on your website. This is just the legal official name of your business, and you can keep this very simple. When I first got started, I called it, you know, my last name plus what I did.

So it was just Malin Fitness, and I kept it very simple. So if you are stumped and you’re really overwhelmed with what to call it, use the formula your last name plus what you do. It’s clear and to the point, you are the coach, what you provide is help with health wellness or fitness, and just move on.

Now, a legal note, you may choose to create an LLC before you take on clients. I didn’t. I waited until I was further along in the process because an LLC is not a requirement to be in business.

Again, this is not legal advice. I operated as a sole proprietor at first. I got my tax ID from the IRS, and then farther down the line, I created an LLC for my business for financial and legal protection.

So it’s not a requirement to get started, but definitely talk to a lawyer if you want to make sure that you are protecting your home, your family, and your finances. Now, financially, you want to make sure that you’re keeping your business finances separate from your personal finances. So you’ll want to have a separate bank account and later on a separate credit card for your business expenditures.

You’ll need your EIN from the IRS if you’re in the US for this business account, and you can get that online. You’ll also want a way to track your business expenses as you go. And trust me, you will thank yourself a tax time for keeping it organized from day one.

You can use something basic like a Google sheet or an Excel spreadsheet. You’ll also need to set up a way to take payment that’s separate from your personal PayPal or Venmo account. If you have one, I use Stripe for my business and I’ve been very happy with it.

Now, before you take any payment or work with clients, you’ll want to make sure that you’re covered in a worst case scenario by having insurance. You’ll also need waivers for your clients to sign and or client agreement forms. These are going to look different based on what type of business you’re running.

So I always recommend checking with the organization that provided your certification to see if they have standard forms or templates to use and then having a lawyer review your client documents to make sure those documents are going to cover you legally.

Notice I didn’t say for foundation that you’re going to build a fancy website or spend hundreds of dollars or hours creating a logo or spending money that you haven’t made yet on business cards or any of the stuff that is really not going to directly impact you getting clients. I have seen way too many coaches get hung up on and spend days, weeks, months in the busy work of websites and business cards before they’ve even gotten a client.

Heck, I did the same thing. Foundation step is all about setting your business up as an official entity and setting it up in an organized way to manage your clients and your cash. So step two in focus method is your offer.

What you’re going to do here is outline who you help, how you help and how long you’ll be working together during your initial offer. This is not going to be permanent. This doesn’t have to be the program that you offer forever.

And I know a lot of the certification organizations will say, you know, offer a three month program and a six month program. But in the beginning, I would say take on a client for 30 days. Keep it short.

Keep it simple because a three month program or six month program when you’re first starting out is a big commitment. And that can be a hard sell for both you and your clients. What I did was offer a 30 day jump start.

And it was perfect for me to get my feet wet with coaching. It got a few bucks in my bank account. And I got a ton of clarity and confidence in myself as a coach.

So your goal at this point is to just get your first clients to work with you for the minimum amount of time needed for them to make some progress, see results and be excited enough about what’s happening that they want to tell other people about their experience working with you.

Once you have a handful of testimonials, you can change your offer. But for this particular method, offer a 30 day quick start or jump start for a specific outcome that you feel passionate about helping people with.

Maybe it’s quitting smoking, getting more active, eating healthier, having more energy, feeling less stressed, whatever it is. When you’re first starting out, narrowing down what you’re going to offer can be really hard. You’re a health coach, right? You can help anybody.

But what you’re going to find out if you haven’t already is that a specific offer and outcome is going to make it a lot easier for clients to see the value of what you do. Now, we’ll get too deep in the weeds here about niching down.

But just know that if you can put together something specific that a potential client can visualize themselves achieving and this particular change would be meaningful in their life, it’s going to be a lot easier to get clients to say yes to a 30 day sprint than a six month marathon.

Now, remember, this offer isn’t your forever offer. It’s just for right now. It’s just to get your foot in the door.

It’s just to get your feet wet. It’s going to change and it should. But the purpose of this offer statement that we’re creating is to help you to get your first three to five clients so that you can get experience, gain confidence, get clarity, have impact and make some money.

Otherwise, this is just a really expensive hobby, isn’t it? So here’s a sample focus offer. Here’s the offer that I posted on my Facebook page. I’m looking for five busy moms who are looking to have more energy in the next 30 days so they can keep up with their kids and not collapse on the couch at bedtime.

Who’s in? Now, I created this offer by stating a specific number of client slots that I wanted to fill, a specific demographic and something that I know that they’d really love to achieve and a set number of days in which I could help them get those results. Now, step number three is collect knows.

One of the best things you can do early in your business is desensitize yourself to hearing the word no.

We’re so programmed to fear rejection. But your job, when you pitch your services, isn’t always to sign a client to get them to make a decision. And sometimes that decision is not to work with you, and that’s OK.

And I promise that most of the time, it is not personal. You’re looking for potential clients who fit the bill. They’re a specific demographic.

They’re in a certain age range. They want the outcome that you’re offering and they’re ready to show up, invest time, money and energy to make some lifestyle changes in the next 30 days. Now, that’s kind of a tall order and not everyone that you ask is going to check all of those boxes, and that is OK.

So I want you to think of no as not now or I heard your description and that’s not me. If you do that, it’s easier to see that their no has little to do with you. It could also be that you haven’t done enough to gain their trust yet, right? Because sales don’t happen without trust.

Either they don’t know you as a coach or as a person or as somebody who gets results and they’re not willing to extend the trust just yet, that’s OK. Now, I’ve worked with hundreds of coaches who are starting their business and the thing that I see impacting their lack of clients is being too passive in making their offer. They fail to make themselves their business or their offer visible to potential clients.

They either assume that people know what they do and will reach out if they want help. That’s not true. Or they think an occasional post on Facebook is seen by and remembered by their entire friends list and they don’t want to be annoying.

So they fail to share this info often on social media, which is also definitely not true. Or they automatically assume that the people they know are not interested. They can’t afford it or they wouldn’t want to work with them.

What we do in the focus method is actively collect rejection. We reach out to anybody that fits the criteria of the offer and we let them say no to us. We don’t count anyone out.

We stay out of their pockets and we don’t decide for them if they are ready for change. Here’s what it looks like. Make a list of 50 contacts in your personal network.

These could be your friends, neighbors, Facebook contacts, co-workers, relatives. And we reach out with the offer. If they say no, great.

You’re one step closer to the five who are going to say yes. And don’t forget to ask them if they’d be willing to pass on the information to anybody that they know who might be a great fit. If they say yes, great.

You have a new client. Now, you can also share this in your Facebook group if you have one. Step four, under promise and over deliver.

Now, I know I did the exact opposite of this when I was first starting out, and it’s a huge mistake. You book a client and you promise them the moon and stars. Why? Yes, I can offer 24 seven support plus video content and e-books and everything you want.

And this is great till you find out that logistically and energetically it does not align with how you want to run your business or you find you simply cannot deliver. And then it’s really disheartening and disappointing for you and the client. A much better option is to offer the basics.

That’s going to get them results, the coaching sessions, email support, maybe a worksheet. And then you can surprise and delight them with extras throughout the program. Let me tell you, this makes for a much better client experience and they’re much more likely to stay engaged with your coaching, get results and provide you with a solid goal testimonial, which is the purpose of the focus method.

Now, the final step, step five is social proof. Social proof is such an amazing and important sales tool. The more testimonials that you collect and share, the easier it is to get more clients.

I have personally seen this in my own business. And at some point, the results of what you do speak for themselves. Your business is based on sales and sales are based on trust.

If somebody trusts you, they’re more likely to hire you. If they don’t trust you, they’re not buying. It’s as simple as that.

But how do you gain trust? It needs to be built. Trust has created one interaction at a time. It’s a lot easier and faster to borrow trust than it is to build it from scratch.

Now, when you’re first starting out, you may have heard me talk about your circle of trust and that circle of trust are people who know you, like you and trust you enough to hire you as a coach.

It’s pretty much your direct personal network plus your Facebook friends list, not your business page where you get likes and follows. This is why we start with this list when we’re collecting those with our focus offer.

When happy clients provide testimonials that you can then share with other potential clients, you’re demonstrating that you’ve been trusted by others and then deliver results. There’s a lot of psychology behind testimonials and you’ve probably experienced it yourself. If you’ve ever shopped online, if you’ve ever bought anything on Amazon, you know you go straight to the reviews of products before you buy anything.

And you can be convinced to buy or not buy based on what a group of total strangers has said. So now imagine how much more powerful a testimonial is when it’s provided by somebody that your potential client can relate to, and it demonstrates how you were pivotal in the process. Testimonials allow you to leverage the trust that you’ve already built to create trust in potential clients.

So just to recap, the focus method is foundation. You’re going to cross your T’s, dot your I’s, officially, legally, and financially to set yourself up for success and protect yourself. O is your offer.

You’re going to create a short term offer with a specific outcome that’s limited with a set number of client spaces. You’re going to use urgency, specificity and scarcity to encourage people to take action. See, you’re going to collect no’s.

You can’t wait for clients to knock your door down and beg you to work with them, so you’re going to put your offer in front of at least 50 people in your direct personal network.

This network is the group of people who trust you the most right now, and you’re going to let them decide if this offer is perfect for them. You’re going to under promise and over deliver.

You’re going to surprise your clients with bonus features and delight them with extras they weren’t expecting and not the other way around. And S is social proof. You’re going to document the kind words and amazing results of your 30 day jumpstart or boot camp or whatever you call it.

And you’re going to use those testimonials going forward to grow your business. Let the words of happy clients be the proof that others need to sign up for your services. I want to tell you that I use this method to generate the first thousand dollars in my business after trying and failing to get up and running for months.

I’ve been using this with my clients and they are always shocked by how easy it is to get clients when they just follow the process and ask. I hope that this was really helpful for you as you are getting up and running in your business because I’ve been there and I found this really helpful to get my first clients and jumpstart making money in my business.

So I hope that this is helpful for you when you’re first starting out.