This Is Why All Coaches Need a Website

Mar 15

According to Zillow, houses with dark doors sell for $6k more. Now I know what you’re thinking: “That’s great Sequoia but I thought you were a website designer, not a door paint saleswoman?”

And you’d be right. I am not a door paint saleswoman. But a huge part of my job revolves around aesthetics and value. You see, this statistic from Zillow has everything to do with the value we associate from our own damn eyeballs. We connect aesthetics with cost. We associate the look with the value.

No, I’m not saying change your branding to all black and navy (the specific colors likely have to do more with trends than anything else). I’m just saying that the curb appeal matters. And that matters for business owners because a lot of our businesses attract new eyes online. So because aesthetics matter, and we use the “curb appeal” of a business to determine value, your website is related to your service’s perceived value.

I want you to imagine looking for a coach. You know you want someone high level, you probably have a budget in mind, and you want someone that knows what you’re going through. Let’s say you start by looking on Instagram and you visit the first three coaches that pop up.

Coach A has 120 posts, 3300 followers, and a website in their bio. You click on their website but it takes a bit to load. When you scroll down their home page, the text is poorly formatted. You open the menu and click on packages. The packages page just lists the length of the package but doesn’t share what results they’ve achieved or the cost to work with them. The other pages on their website don’t provide much information, but there are some nice photos. You don’t have enough of a connection with them to continue to pursue them so you return to Instagram to move on to the next coach.

Coach B has 600 posts, 40k followers, and a bunch of highlights and information. But they don’t have a website. To find the info you want to find, you have to scour their social media, which let’s face it, is built to be social rather than to share information. You tap through all of their stories until you find one that is talking about their services. They aren’t clear about the package length, what they solve, or what their niche is. The cost is there, and is within your budget, but you don’t have enough information. You exit and move on to the next coach.

Coach C has 60 posts, 300 followers, and a website in their bio. When you navigate to their site you notice how quickly it loads. It has a photo of them and great copy that explains their niche and who they serve. You quickly realize that they are talking directly to you, so you navigate to their services tab. You see that they offer a coaching package that is the amount of time that you are looking for and is also within your budget. From there, you easily book a call with them. Now you can leave their website, log out of instagram, and lock your phone knowing that you found exactly what you are looking for.

Surely hiring a coach is a bit more intensive for some people, but others do it exactly like that. There are always people searching for the path of least resistance. So the best thing to do is to offer it to them.

At the end of the day, your service’s perceived value does rely heavily on the perception of your online presence. If you want a $200 website, go pay for a $200 website, but don’t be surprised if it looks like a $200 website and people aren’t willing to pay four figures for your coaching.

After all, great coaches hire great web designers.

Apply to work with this one, here.