How to sell coaching ethically through email

In the source conversation, Mike Samuels describes running his business without a landing page or, at that time, a website. He uses a paper diary and asks people to follow him on Facebook for two weeks before they join his email list.

Mike sells educational products and services through email. We spoke to him because much online business advice favours complexity: chatbots, retargeting sequences and high-ticket sales calls. Mike's approach shows that a simple process, repeated consistently, can support a business.

The conversation covered how Mike started, what copywriting is, how to think about building an audience, and why ethical selling is also a sound business decision.

What copywriting is

Many coaches treat copywriting as a specialism they must hire out, or as a set of secret phrases that trigger purchases. Mike's definition is more practical.

"Copywriting is writing designed to elicit a direct response. But everything you write is copy to a degree, because everything you write should be trying to get someone to take action on something."

Your Facebook posts, emails and Instagram captions are all copy. The question is whether you write them well.

For Mike, good copy has three components:

• Emotion. It speaks to the problems and goals your audience has.
• Objection handling. It raises the reasons people would not buy and answers them.
• Voice. It sounds like a person, not a sales script.

Voice matters more than most coaches realise. The older American advertorial style, with "dear friend, from the desk of" openings, still works in some markets. For most online fitness coaches writing to a UK or international audience, a conversational style is more likely to fit.

The golf analogy

Mike compares copy to golf. Many coaches expect a single post or email to take someone from cold reader to paying client, a hole in one. When that does not happen, they decide the copy failed.

Holes in one are rare. The realistic aim is to move the ball closer to the hole with each contact.

"What you're trying to do is reduce the average number of contacts it takes someone to become a customer, from 20 to 15 to 10. That's what good copy does over time."

This gives you a better way to evaluate content. Ask whether a piece moved someone closer to trusting you enough to buy, not whether it made a sale on its own.

Readers become ready at different times

An email list or social following contains people at different stages:

• Some readers will not be a fit for the offer.
• Some need more information, or a later opportunity, before they decide.
• Some are ready to take the next step now.

Most marketing advice concentrates on the last group. Funnel optimisation, retargeting and conversion-rate tweaks all aim at the people ready to buy today.

Mike's approach starts from the other end. Build an email list. Communicate consistently with the people who chose to receive your messages. Give useful information over time. When someone is ready, whether next week or much later, they know where to find you.

"I've had people say 'I've been on your list for a year and a half and just clicked the link today.' That's a real sale. One you'd have completely missed if you only played the short game."

Do not assume a fixed proportion of the list will eventually buy. Record who actually responds and when.

The problem with aggressive sales tactics

Some online business coaching, particularly in fitness, teaches high-pressure selling as standard: pain-based marketing, manufactured scarcity and emotional pressure on sales calls.

Mike's view is that this approach is ethically questionable and practically counterproductive.

The issue appears after the sale. The person who needed aggressive persuasion to commit is often a poor client. They engage less, get weaker results and are more likely to ask for a refund.

The client who buys after following you for months, reading your content and deciding to trust you tends to show up, do the work and stay.

"Your worst type of customer is the one who bought your thing, then an FX course, then a real estate offer the month before that. You might get the money, but they're very unlikely to put the work in."

A business built on low-pressure selling is also less stressful to run. You spend less time replacing clients who left because they were never a good fit.

Belief-shifting: the copy skill many coaches miss

Most coaches focus their selling on the outcome. They describe the weight loss, the business growth or the transformation. The people on your list already want that outcome. That is why they followed you.

What stops them buying is usually an objection, not a lack of desire.

I have bad genetics. I do not have time. I tried this before and it did not work. I cannot afford it. This will not work for someone like me.

Good copy names those objections and answers them. It shows why the reader's current belief is wrong and how your approach differs.

"The more objection handling and belief shifting you can get across, showing them here's what people think you need to do, here's why that's wrong, here's what you actually need, that's huge in terms of generating sales."

Moving from outcome-selling to belief-shifting changes how you plan every piece of content.

Simplicity as a strategy

Mike built his business on email and Facebook. He has no complex tech stack, branded app or elaborate automation sequences. He knew these tools existed. He also knew his own preferences well enough to see that complexity would slow him down.

A weekly check-in and honest communication can serve both coach and client well. Test the core offer before you invest in a more elaborate delivery system.

"I think a huge number of people stay in the stage of hopeful planning, making things more complicated because they don't want to actually face reality and see whether it works."

The alternative is to release something, observe what happens and refine it. An imperfect offer that exists teaches you more than a perfect one still being built.

Selling ethically: the long game

Mike told a story about the first mentor he hired. After the call, Mike was excited and ready to pay. The mentor told him to wait 24 hours, because excitement can turn into cold feet, and to call back the next day if he still wanted to go ahead.

Mike signed up the next day. Turning down an immediate sale in the customer's interest built more trust than any closing technique.

"That was exactly how I'd want to be sold to. And it's the messaging I've tried to put across ever since."

That is the theme of the whole conversation. Build trust over time. Communicate honestly. Let people buy when they are ready. Do not trade the long-term relationship for a short-term conversion.

This approach does not produce dramatic launch stories. It does produce a business that is sustainable, enjoyable to run and easy to stand behind.

Key takeaways

• Copywriting. Everything you write is copy. Good copy handles objections, shifts beliefs and sounds like a person.
• Audiences. Make useful information available over time and measure actual responses.
• Sales tactics. Pressuring people into buying produces your worst clients. Patience and trust produce your best.
• Simplicity. Complexity is often procrastination. The simple business that launches beats the sophisticated one that does not.
• Ethics. Selling in a way you are proud of is also the better business decision, because trusting clients get results and stay.

This is an edited summary of our Propane podcast conversation with Mike Samuels. The full episode is below.

Related guide: How organic content supports an online coaching sales process.