How to Grow Your Coaching Business (In a Way That Works for You!)

Do you love working with coaches and other professionals as clients? Maybe they inspire you to be your best self and bring out the best in others. Maybe you feel an inner drive to help them, grow, develop their business, or personally thrive so that they can have a successful practice. If so, then maybe you are called to work with them as their coach! What does it take to build a coaching business? It’s not about what you know or even if you have experience working in another field related to coaching. Instead, it’s about how much time and energy you are willing to invest up front. It takes courage – courage to trust yourself, your instincts, and your vision for helping others succeed. Let’s explore more…

What is Coaching?

Coaching is a relationship in which one person (the coach) helps another person (the client) achieve their goals or solve problems in their life by focusing on the client’s strengths. The coach listens attentively, asks questions, gives feedback, and when appropriate, brings in other resources to help the client succeed. When coaching is done well, it can be transformational. People who work with coaches often experience increased confidence, improved problem-solving skills, and an increased ability to handle whatever life throws at them. Coaching is a complementary service that is often used as a tool for rapid and lasting change.

Why Starting a Business Is Scary

Starting a business is scary. It can be a rollercoaster ride of exhilarating highs, crushing lows, and everything in between. Yes, there is the potential for a huge payoff, but there is also the possibility of failing and coming up with nothing. It’s easy to get caught up in the fear of this uncertainty that comes with entrepreneurship. Coaching is a service business, meaning that you are essentially running a business that provides something of value to clients. You may be an expert in marketing or public speaking or managing time. And although it’s possible to offer your services on a contract basis, most people who are starting out prefer to do the work as a business. And that means that you need to face the same challenges that come with starting any business. You’ll need to figure out how to make money, market your services, and find clients.

Take Responsibility for Your Fears

Being responsible for your own fears can mean acknowledging that you’re not ready for this path yet, or that you’re scared because you feel unprepared to handle the challenges that come with entrepreneurship. It can also be about taking responsibility for your emotional reaction to being scared. So often we try to push our fear away by trying to talk ourselves out of it. We say things like, “I don’t need to be scared because nothing bad will ever happen to me.” And when our fear doesn’t go away, we try to silence it with negative self-talk like, “I’m being ridiculous!” or “I’ll never make it as a coach!” However, negative self-talk and trying to silence your fear with positive affirmations don’t actually help. When you try to push your fear away, it just comes back stronger. When you talk to yourself negatively, you feel even worse.

Define What Coaching Means to You

When you’re ready to move past the generalities of deciding that you want to be a coach, and you’re ready to grow your coaching business, you may want to start by defining what coaching means to you. Think about what clients come to you for. You could decide to specialize in working with a certain type of client, such as people who want to grow their businesses. Or you could decide to coach people in a certain area of their lives, like health or relationships. If you have a specific type of client in mind, you’ll want to start by figuring out who your ideal clients are. Are they people who are in your target market? Who have a certain skill set? Or are they people who are facing a specific challenge in their lives?

Decide on Your Ideal Client

Once you’ve decided on the type of client you’d like to work with, it’s time to get to know them better. You’ll want to find out what their biggest challenges are and how they want to feel as a result of working with you. Once you’ve identified your ideal clients and know what they’re struggling with, you can decide how you want to position yourself as their coach. You can start by identifying one or two areas where you want to help clients make a difference in their lives and then build your business around those strengths.

Commit to Step Out and Talk to People

Most people who start out as coaches start by trying to market their services to people they already know. This can be a great way to get your foot in the door and lead to referrals in the future. However, you will need to branch out and talk to new people if you want to grow your business. You may be able to find potential clients online through blogs or social media groups or by talking to people at your current job (if you work in a field related to coaching). What’s important is that you get out there and talk to people. You can’t just sit around and expect clients to come to you. You have to be willing to put yourself out there, no matter how scary it feels.