AI visibility for coaches and consultants

ChatGPT is now where Vanessa Kay's best clients find her.

Vanessa runs The Kay Media, a marketing consultancy in Canada. She works alone with a bench of freelancers and decides everything herself, like most of the people this page is for. Here is what changed after we did this work with her.

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applications since late September came from AI search, her biggest source. Before September, it was 1 of 60.

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of those applicants already run an established clinic.

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ChatGPT answers named her firm first, across five questions her clients ask, three times each. All 15 cited her site.

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search terms from her contract are on Google's first page, five of them at #1.

What matters here is the first line. The applications are what she pays for. The answers and the rankings are how they got there. Read her full case.

Being named when a client asks an AI who to hire.

You'll see it called AI visibility, generative engine optimization (GEO) or answer engine optimization (AEO). For a coach or a consultant, the three mean the same thing. When someone asks ChatGPT for an expert like you, you want your name in the answer, described correctly, with a link to your site.

It works differently from Google. Google gives ten links, and the client still has to choose. ChatGPT gives a few names and a reason for each, so most of the choosing is done before anyone visits a website.

A client's question also tends to be long and specific. Nobody types "coach" into ChatGPT. They write, "I was just promoted to VP and now I manage people who used to be my peers. Who is a good executive coach for that?" An expert who has written about exactly that situation has something for ChatGPT to quote. One who only says "leadership coaching" doesn't.

When ChatGPT names experts, 70% of what it reads is their own websites.

We asked ChatGPT 24 questions that clients ask, across seven professions: executive coaches, business coaches, management consultants, leadership consultants, fractional CFOs, HR consultants and B2B sales coaches. We asked each question three times, in new chats with web search on, and saved all 72 answers. Those answers listed 551 sources, and 387 of them were on the sites of experts it named.

The share ranged from 61% for sales coaches to 78% for management consultants. Directories and profiles do count, and on some questions they count a lot. The largest part, in every profession, was the experts' own pages.

That is good news for a small practice. You can't buy a Forbes profile by next month, but you can have a page that answers the exact question your best client asks.

Three more things stood out for coaches.

• People get named, not only firms. In the executive coaching answers, 33 of the 50 mentions were of a person rather than a company. A solo practice isn't at a disadvantage.
• The list isn't settled. Of the 28 names ChatGPT gave across 9 answers, 16 came up only once. Nobody owns these answers yet.
• Each question has its own list. Across the three coaching questions, at most two names carried from one question to another. Being named once doesn't carry across, so you need to be there for each question that matters.

We asked these questions about Toronto, in the ChatGPT app on a free account. Answers vary from one run to the next, which is why we ask three times. Read the full study, including why homepages matter more than blogs, or see how we measure.

The own-site pattern holds in every line of work. The other sources differ.

Here is what the answers looked like for each profession, with the share of sources on the sites of the experts named, and an outside site ChatGPT used often. If you're on the outside site for your field, or could be, that's an easy place to begin.

Executive coaches

28 names in 9 answers. 69% own sites. CoachVouch profiles appeared in 4 of the 9 answers.

Business coaches

26 names in 9 answers. 70% own sites, and no single outside site stood out.

Management consultants

49 names in 15 answers. 78% own sites. Clutch was cited 9 times.

Leadership consultants

39 names in 12 answers. 67% own sites, with roundup pages such as Leadership Training Hub also used.

Fractional CFOs

14 names in 9 answers, the shortest list of the seven. 66% own sites. Find Finance Pros was cited 5 times.

HR consultants

22 names in 9 answers. 72% own sites. HRX Connect was cited 8 times.

B2B sales coaches

26 names in 9 answers. 61% own sites, the lowest share, with RevenueBase and Ivey also used.

A short list like the one for fractional CFOs cuts both ways: fewer people are named, and each one is named more often. Your own capture shows who is on yours.

You can run a rough version of this test in five minutes.

1. Open ChatGPT in a temporary chat, so your own history doesn't colour the answer, and turn on web search.
2. Write the question your best client would ask, with their situation and your city. Don't use your name.
3. Ask it three times, each in a new chat. Note who comes up, in what order, and which sites it links to.
4. Then ask, "Who is [your name], and what do they do?" Check what it gets right and what it gets wrong.

If you'd rather not do this by hand, it's what your free capture does, across three questions, with every answer and source on one private page.

Your referrals now get checked in ChatGPT too.

Most coaches and consultants get their best clients through referrals, and this doesn't replace them. It protects them. Someone is told about you, then they look you up before they call. More and more, they ask ChatGPT, and it may describe you badly or suggest three other people.

It also works as a source of its own. In January 2025, Farah Hussain, a coach for executive women of colour, posted on LinkedIn what a new prospect had told her: “I asked ChatGPT. Entered my criteria for a coach, and it gave me 3 options. You were one of them.”

Four steps, starting with what ChatGPT says about you today.

1. Your capture. We ask ChatGPT the questions your clients ask, three times each, and give you a private page with every answer, every name and every site it used. It's free.
2. A free 20-minute call. We go through your page with you, pick the questions that matter most for your business, and show you the first sites to work on. We also tell you whether we're the right fit. If we're not, we'll say so.
3. A baseline, if we work together. In ten business days, we check the questions your clients ask, and questions about you by name, in ChatGPT and Google, and you get a plan signed by our founder.
4. Then every month. New or improved pages on your site, one long article written from a call with you, requests to profiles, directories and podcasts in your name, your capture run again, and a dated report.

Book your free 20-minute call

Your site first, then the places ChatGPT reads about you.

Pages that answer your clients' questions

One clear page for each service or problem, written in your words. It says who you work with, on what, and how the work runs, so an AI can quote it. This is the biggest lever we found, and it's the one you control.

One story about you, everywhere

Your site, LinkedIn, association profile and podcast pages should give the same name, description and credentials. When they disagree, an AI hedges or gets it wrong.

Independent mentions

Directories and association finders such as ICF's Find a Coach or CMC-Canada's Find a CMC, plus podcasts and lists in your field. We report every request with its outcome, and a placement counts once it's published.

The technical basics

We make sure AI crawlers can read your site, add Person and Service schema, and describe you in an llms.txt file. These are quick to do and help, but they won't get you named without something worth quoting.

Thirty minutes a month: one call with Montacer.

You don't write. That call is the interview for your monthly article, and we turn it into a piece in your voice. You approve it, or it goes live five business days later. You get a five-line note every Thursday, with at most one question a week from us. We work beside your developer and designer, so you keep them.

Five questions to ask anyone who sells this, including us.

1. Can you show me a named client and what changed in their business, not only in their rankings?
2. Can I see the actual answers you measured, word for word, with the questions you asked?
3. How many times do you ask each question? One run proves little, because answers vary.
4. Who will actually do the work, and who will I talk to?
5. What do you guarantee? Be careful with anyone who guarantees that ChatGPT will name you, because nobody controls what it says.

Montacer Mitoually, the founder, takes every call.

grizaille is run by the founder and team of Maroc SEO, the #1 SEO agency in Morocco. Maroc SEO was founded in 2018: 100+ clients, 2 billion+ impressions, and a 4.9/5 rating from 111 Google reviews. We work with clients across Canada, in English and French. More on our About page.