How to Get Your First Coaching Clients Without Paid Ads | Tijana Tucic

Abi Asija sits down with Tijana Tucic of Set Priorities, a new coaching business focused on trauma recovery and personal transformation through transformational writing. Tijana is starting with free one-on-one clients while building toward a larger vision, but the core challenge is confidence, market validation, and turning a deeply personal mission into a clear offer that the right audience can understand quickly.Key Insight: Before scaling a coaching business, the market has to validate the offer. Abi helps Tijana slow down from big revenue targets and advanced growth strategies so she can first prove product-market fit, define the ideal customer, collect feedback, and build conviction through real client results.The first strategic move is narrowing the ideal customer profile. Tijana initially describes a wide group of women who have experienced emotional pain, childhood trauma, difficult relationships, and life patterns they want to break. Abi pushes her to simplify that into a clearer starting point: middle-aged women who have experienced trauma and want to process their pain through structured transformational writing.Abi also works through the positioning statement. Tijana already has a unique mechanism in transformational writing, but the outcome needs to become more specific and easier to understand. The goal is for the right woman to see the message within 5 seconds and feel that Tijana is speaking directly to her situation, without vague spiritual language or confusing promises.The demand strategy starts with warm conversations. Since Tijana has limited time outside her full-time job, Abi recommends reaching out personally to people already in her network across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and personal connections. The focus is not cold selling, but starting human conversations, asking for feedback, and inviting the right people into free sessions to test the offer.Abi also explains how to move from free clients to proof and eventually paid work. Free sessions should be framed honestly as an exchange for feedback, not as a permanent model. If a client rates the experience highly, Tijana can request a recorded feedback interview and use approved clips as testimonials. If the feedback is lower, she gets the exact data needed to improve the program.You will learn how to validate a new coaching offer, define a clearer ideal customer, use warm outreach to generate early demand, collect testimonials without pressure, and build the confidence to transition from free sessions to paid clients and eventually group programs.