Lead generation
for coaches.

Coaching is a crowded field. The ICF counted 122,974 coach practitioners worldwide in 2025, up 15% on 2023, and most are chasing the same people on the same platforms. The coaches who stay full usually aren't winning on volume. They're the name that comes up when someone asks a colleague, a psychologist, an accountant or an HR manager 'do you know a good coach for this?'

That shapes where the effort should go. The table below is how the main sources usually compare. Your own numbers will differ, which is the point of the scorecard further down.

A free guide can bring in 200 email addresses in a month and not one client. A single introduction from a past client can fill a six-month program. Coaches sell hours, so the real cost of a source includes the hours spent on posts, calls with people who were never going to buy, and follow-ups that go nowhere.

There's research behind trusting referrals more. In the bank study, referred customers had a higher margin at first, and the gap shrank over time, but they were about 18% less likely to leave and the difference held. A bank isn't a coaching practice, but the reason carries over: the person who referred them has already done some of the matching for you.

Enter your last three months below. If you don't know where your clients came from, that's the first thing to fix: ask every new client, and write it down.

'If you know anyone who might benefit, send them my way' almost never works. It asks the client to do the thinking. A specific ask works better: 'Do you know another manager who has just stepped up to lead their old team? That's the situation I'm best at.' Now they can picture a person.

Ask at the moment the client feels the progress, not on the last invoice. Give them something easy to forward: two lines on who you help and a link to book a call. With professionals who refer to you, agree on the edges: a psychologist may refer non-clinical clients, and you refer clinical concerns back. Reciprocity works both ways.

A referral cools quickly. Reply the same day, offer two times for a call, and if you hear nothing, follow up once a few days later with something useful, not 'just checking in'. The discovery calls page covers what happens once they book.

Marketing by email, text or instant message is covered by the Spam Act. The OAIC lists instant messages alongside email, SMS and MMS, so a LinkedIn message that pitches your coaching to someone you don't know deserves the same care as a marketing email. The ACMA's rules are consent, sender identification and a working unsubscribe, and it says express consent can be given through a form, a tick box, a phone call or in person, as long as you can prove it.

Inferred consent is weaker than most people think. The ACMA says it usually needs a provable, ongoing relationship with your business. Meeting someone at a breakfast in Gosford, or connecting on LinkedIn, isn't that. Cold calls have their own limits: the OAIC says telemarketing to a number listed on the Do Not Call Register is off limits unless an exception applies, and the ACMA's calling hours apply to all telemarketing.

On privacy, most solo coaches are under the $3 million turnover threshold and outside the Privacy Act. One exception matters here: the OAIC lists health service providers as covered regardless of turnover, so a health or wellness coach who collects health details should check whether that applies. The coaching advertising rules page covers the NSW code for unregistered health practitioners.