Claudia: From Professional Footballer to Sports and Mental Coach
Claudia's the first woman on the podcast, and she brings a completely different energy. She's been a sports and mental coach for over six years. Before that, she played professional football at Montpellier. Now she works exclusively as an independent on the French Riviera. On top of her BPJEPS coaching certification, she's got a neuroscience certification, and that's what lets her go way deeper than your average coach.
What's fascinating about her story is that she never planned her niche. She didn't sit down with a spreadsheet and figure out "which market is the most profitable." Her clientele built itself naturally, and she was smart enough to follow it instead of fighting it. This episode brings a fresh take on pricing, finding your first clients, and making the leap to digital.
What you'll learn in this episode
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You don't choose your niche... it chooses you
Claudia didn't deliberately target women. Her clients just naturally ended up being mostly women. Her advice is dead simple: take action, watch who shows up, and adjust based on that. Eventually the niche reveals itself. You don't pick it on paper, you discover it in the field.
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Sport, nutrition, and mental coaching are one package
For Claudia, you can't work on the physical without touching the mental, and you can't touch the mental without talking about nutrition. Her neuroscience certification gives her the tools to coach the mental side, and it's that completeness that justifies her rates and keeps her clients around for a long time.
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She owns her prices, and she justifies them by what they actually deliver
70 euros per in-person session, 50 to 120 euros for her online courses. Her reasoning isn't about comparing herself to other coaches. It's about comparing to what her clients already spend. A gym membership, therapy sessions, a Netflix subscription... when you put it all in perspective, coaching is the investment that has the biggest impact on someone's daily life.
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To get her first clients, she showed up in person
Claudia went around to luxury hotels on the French Riviera dropping off her business cards. She ran group classes on the beach. Word of mouth took care of the rest. Every action she took gave her information. She could see who was showing up, what was working, what wasn't. That's how she built her client base. Not from behind a screen, but by being out there in the real world.
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Continuing to learn is what separates you from the rest over time
Claudia says it straight: when she finished her BPJEPS, she felt "not at all ready." It was her neuroscience certification that truly transformed the depth of her coaching. And that's why she pushes this so hard: a coach who stops learning, their clients eventually feel it. Continuing education isn't a luxury. It's what keeps you relevant.
Resources mentioned
- Podia : the platform she uses to sell her online courses
- BPJEPS : the bare minimum certification to coach in France, and she stresses that it really is the bare minimum
- Neuroscience certification : the training that changed how she coaches her clients
"Nutrition, sport, and mindset... for me they're inseparable. All three work together."
"I don't think you choose your niche. It comes to you."
