Read your own hero section as if you were a Head of L&D with a budget and a problem. Not as the coach who wrote it. As the buyer.
Most coaching homepages open with a line like this: “I help ambitious leaders unlock their potential and lead with confidence and clarity.” It is warm. It is true. It speaks directly to the leader who will sit in the chair across from you.
That leader is not the one who signs the cheque.
Who actually signs off when a company hires a coach?
In corporate coaching, the person being coached and the person paying for the coaching are almost never the same. A VP gets coached. HR or L&D approves the spend. A CHRO signs off on the programme. The hero section is the first thing all of them read, and it was written for exactly one of them: the coachee. The buyer scrolls past a paragraph that was never addressed to them, and quietly concludes this is a personal-development thing, not a business thing.
The coachee’s question versus the buyer’s question
The leader you coach and the person who signs off read the same page looking for different answers. The coachee, the VP or director who will sit in the chair, asks whether this will help them grow and whether they will feel supported. The buyer, the Head of L&D or the CHRO holding the budget, asks whether this will steady the leader who is stalling, and whether they can defend the spend to the board. Two readers, two questions. Most coaching homepages answer the first and leave the second blank.
Why does speaking to the coachee cost you corporate work?
A corporate buyer is not shopping for potential and clarity. They are managing a risk or protecting a bet.
They just promoted someone into a role two sizes too big and they need that person to not stall. They have a senior leader who is brilliant and abrasive and torching their team. They are restructuring and need three directors to hold steady through it. They have a high performer flagged as a retention risk. Every one of those is a specific business problem with a cost attached, and a name in a spreadsheet.
When your homepage speaks only to the individual’s growth, the buyer has to do the translation themselves. They have to look at “unlock your potential” and work out whether that maps to “keep my newly promoted VP from failing in her first quarter.” Most buyers will not do that work. They are busy, they have a shortlist to build, and the coach whose site names their actual problem gets the call. You do not lose to a better coach. You lose to a clearer homepage.
The cruel part is that you can almost certainly solve their problem. The site just never said so in a language the buyer recognises.
What should a coaching homepage say to the buyer?
Fixing this is not a redesign. It is usually one or two lines at the top of the page. You keep speaking to the coachee, because they matter too. You add the buyer.
Here is a before and after.
Before: “I help ambitious leaders unlock their potential and lead with confidence and clarity.”
After: “I coach newly promoted executives through their first 90 days, so the person you just bet on doesn’t stall. Trusted by L&D teams in scaling tech and professional services.”
Look at what changed. The after line names the buyer’s problem (“the person you just bet on”), names the moment they feel it (“their first 90 days”), and signals that other companies have already trusted this with a real budget (“L&D teams”). It still describes coaching a leader. It just does it in the buyer’s terms, using the buyer’s stakes.
You do not have to abandon warmth to do this. A second line can carry the human note: “And the leaders themselves tend to say it was the most useful development they have had.” Now both readers are addressed. The buyer sees a business outcome first. The coachee sees the human one right after.
The test is simple. Cover everything on your homepage except the first two lines. Hand it to someone who has never met you and ask them one question: who is this for, and what problem does it solve for the company? If they can only tell you it helps leaders grow, your hero is talking to the coachee. If they can tell you it keeps a promoted executive from failing, or steadies a team through restructure, you have named the buyer.
Most coaches read their own hero and see a promise they are proud of. The buyer reads the same words and sees a paragraph that was written for someone else. That gap is quiet, it costs you real work, and it is fixable in an afternoon once you can see it.
Seeing it on your own page is the hard part. If you want the three specific things on your homepage that are talking past the buyer, that is what the 60-Second Homepage Audit is for. It is US$199, and it comes off the price in full if you go on to a build.
Should my coaching homepage speak to the leader I coach or the company that hires me?
Both, but the company first. In corporate coaching the person coached and the person paying are rarely the same. Open by naming the buyer’s problem, then speak to the coachee right after. Most coach sites only do the second half.
What should the first line of a coaching homepage actually say?
A: Name the buyer’s situation in their terms: the newly promoted leader who might stall, the team wobbling through a restructure. “Unlock your potential” is the coachee’s frame. A corporate buyer is managing a risk and needs to see it in the first sentence.
Do I have to drop the warm, personal language to reach corporate buyers?
No. You add the buyer, you don’t delete the coachee. A business-outcome line first, a human line second. Both readers get addressed.