5 Steps to Building a Coaching Business

If you’ve been thinking about building a coaching business, or you’re a coach who is ready to grow your coaching business, I’ve written an article especially for you this week – “5 Steps to Building a Coaching Business“.

It’s not easy to juggle all the moving parts in the start-up phase of your business. Having professional coaching can make all the difference to you reaching your coaching dreams.

One of the most important pieces of advice I can give you is to get the support you need. It doesn’t have to cost anything either. The gorgeous women in the picture above are my inspirational friends. We are all coaching graduates from The Coaching Institute. We graduated at similar times and now operate our online and offline businesses from Byron shire. Like hummingbirds, we have worked a lot of things out for ourselves, like how to get clients as a life coach and we’ve collectively sought out the best business coaching programs. These women inspire me to keep going when I see them. Seek the people around you who share the same hopes and dreams that you do. There is no such thing as competition. The more we collaborate, the more fruitful business becomes.

It is my dream for you to help you take the shortcuts and avoid the mistakes I made when I started out. You really can learn from my mistakes. My coaching programs are a small fraction of the high 5 figure sum I have invested in the best coaching training and business coaching programs and I share everything I know with you. Let me support you to make your dreams come true.

You can apply for my support here

Once I receive your application, I’ll assess it and will send you all the details about my programs, cost and we’ll set up a time to chat.

5 STEPS TO BUILDING A COACHING BUSINESS

Building a coaching business takes a lot of love, commitment, clarity, gumption, focus, and determination. If you’d like to know how to start a coaching business and how to get clients, here are 5 steps you must take.

1. Find a coach who truly inspires you

There are a plethora of coaches out there to choose from. Do you want a focussed business success coach or a spiritual business coach who understands your unique, holistic way? Starting a coaching business comes with a variety of moving parts and the best coach for you is someone who has already built a coaching business just like the one you’d like to build. It’s important to shop around for a coach, have a chat with them first (I remember once almost signing up with a coach but as soon as we had a conversation, I couldn’t resonate with the sound of her voice. It might sound picky but it’s important to feel that connection).

The best business coach for you will have great testimonials and a love and dedication for the actual art, craft and science of coaching. Don’t be frightened to approach previous clients and ask them about their experiences with a coach you might be interested in. Although I have never been asked for my qualifications, I invested in the best business coaching program that there is available to make sure I had the confidence and skills I needed to best support my coaching clients. It was a multi-5 figure investment but it has meant that I am very clear when I can help someone and when they’re not a good fit for my services. A professional business coach, will make themselves available to have a chat with you about whether you are a good fit. They’ll have great credentials mixed with a great love of doing the work and getting amazing results. They also need to meet you where you are currently at – for example if you’re just starting a coaching business then a start-up business coach will be a more logical fit for you. If you’re ready to start a health coaching business, choose a business coach who knows the health industry well.

2. Have a clear niche or specialty

This might take some time to get clarity on. The clearer your niche or specialty as a coach, the more likely people will sign up for your services. Starting a life coaching business might be your dream, but what aspects of life do you have an expertise in that will differentiate you from the crowd? If you have years of health-practitioner related experience, it makes sense for you to specialise as a health coach and to find a coach who started with a health coaching or consulting business and made it successful enough to be able to teach you how to do the same.

3. Use both offline and online strategies to get clients

I’m a big believer that offline strategies are important for new coaches, even coaches who desire to build an online coaching business. You might dream of an online, laptop and freedom based coaching business but getting clients starts with showing up and being visible in life and business in general. Getting outside your comfort zone to deliver live workshops and showing up in person to deliver the power of transformational coaching – these are the most powerful client acquisition strategies I know. Once you’ve built a following, then you might choose to take the online approach but be prepared to enjoy the kinaesthetic excitement of in-person and offline events and local networking. Something that no one is talking about enough is the fact that a lot of coaches get burnt out from a solely online business model. They start to feel fried from so many Skype calls and from not engaging in an embodied way with powerful business and life coaching tools. Personally, I love taking a balanced approach to both online and offline strategies to avoid ‘tech burn-out’. The local clients I meet with face-to-face create a welcome reprieve from the hours spent online. I love teaching live workshops and I love supporting my coaching clients to fill their workshops and retreats to balance their online world with nourishing offline services.

4. Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate

The power of collaboration can never be underestimated in these trying times. There is really no such thing as competition in service business because the perfect client will suit the right coach or therapist. There are more than enough clients to go round. So why not team up with someone you know, like and trust and double your impact? Collaborating is one of the fastest way to build a coaching business and can take the following forms – holding a joint event and each teaching your specialty, interviewing someone for valuable information to share, sharing a colleague’s launch or event because it will be prove valuable to your networks, meeting for breakfast, lunch or dinner with a coaching colleague to connect and share your business challenges and successes. The best coaches are the best collaborators. The best coaches are generous at heart and share what they know without operating in fear and lack and limitation. Collaboration will leverage your business but unfortunately I hear way too often from clients that they’re frightened about their ideas being ‘stolen.’ Whilst it pays to be discerning, the truth is, that no one can deliver the way you can – your genius zone is unique to you as a coach. Find out what your unique genius zone is and feel your healthy boundaries as you walk, arm in arm with other successful coaches to ascend and expand your coaching business. When you’re having fun collaborating, it’s one of the most powerfully magnetic forces in the universe for a business.

5. If you fail to plan you plan to fail – Benjamin Franklin

Failing to plan your coaching business is a trap that results in the following symptoms: erratic and unpredictable client flow and income, stasis, and burn-out, overwhelm and lack of direction. Creating a life coach business plan, making 7, 30, 90 and 120-day plans, scheduling your important creative endeavours – these go such a long way to directing the ease and flow of the universe towards an ultimate outcome. You are more in charge of your success than you think! Having the support of someone who has created a successful coaching business to help you to craft and create your business plan can be a priceless investment that pays off for the life of your business.

Following these 5 steps, building a coaching business that you love will be easier than you think.