The 7 Steps to Build a Successful Coaching

Business

Success is inherent to creation. Trees grow, waters increase in density, cities get larger and human beings evolve. People grow in the direction that they set their mind on or sometimes that life circumstances channel them towards.

It is no secret that this growth and evolution process which carries a different meaning to each individual comes with challenges and obstacles. Since life comes with no particular manual, there are some people who have either made it their career or are simply gifted with the ability to see beyond the eyesight and possess a clear and sound mind to draw effective and accurate blueprints to build bridges between where we are and where we wish to go. Sometimes we may not even know where we should head towards.

The coach is an experienced or gifted professional who provides moral and strategic support to the one he coaches called the coachee in order for the coachee to gain clarity or reach their desired life goals.

Based on the current youth and speed growth crisis, the world is in need of coaches more than ever. According to the recent statistics by the International Coaching Federation, 1000 people per capita are in need of a coach, however being able to unleash one’s gift or make use of effective tools to help and support others grow is one thing, being able to build a thriving business out of it is another.

Whether you are an aspiring coach or a start-up coach, here are 7 key steps based on real-life experiences, trials, and failures that will allow you to build your business from scratch and scale as you’ve never seen before

Step 1: The Right Frame of Mind

This first step is the essence of all creations on the face of the earth. “Having the right frame of mind”. Building a successful coaching business requires you to lay the psychological foundations which consist of the following :

1. Establishing a business needs a lot of thought and work in the first place. Don’t just go for a business because you are in need of quick cash, In other words, “Don’t do it just because of Money”

• Understand that 9 out of 10 businesses fail within their first year and only a fraction of what you put in in terms of capital and labor at the beginning may come back to you. Most times not at all therefore set yourself ready for the ride.

• Understand that success takes time. Be disciplined to work on your business with an even tighter schedule than your job. This is your business in which you oversee everything ( sales, marketing, accounting, etc…), not your job in which you oversee a particular task or department.

• Ensure to consistently take an informed decision.

Step 2: The Right Niche

In March 2019, I was invited to a party with an undisclosed location and an unknown theme. The dress code though was clear, “All black”. When we arrived at the party the only music that played for more than 15 hours throughout the night was Rock, the loud heavy metal rock. With no spirit of judgment at all to heavy metal lovers, the music was just too hard for me but the beauty of the ladies at the party and a particular lesson kept me there until the very last hour.

The rock bands that played there were not famous but each one of them completely sold out on all their CD(s). Upon reflection on what I had learned that evening, I understood that although I may not like that type of music there was a certain type of

people who were ready to do anything to consume this music, famous or not as long as it suits their senses.

A niche is a specialized market for a particular product or service. Choosing the right niche to serve as a coach consists in choosing what kind of coaching you would like to offer and whether people are willing to spend money in that niche to either solve their problems or give themselves pleasure. Here are some criteria to consider when choosing your niche :

1. The niche or market has a high potential for profitability.
2. It’s catching a long-lasting trend or there are a lot of people interested and actively searching for information within the niche or market.
3. You are at least somewhat interested, or even passionate about the niche or market.
4. A niche with less competition

With that said, it is always best to create your own niche category in which you can be

king/Queen.

Step 3: The Right Offer

“No offer, No business”. Imagine a street hawker who is standing at the street corner with his stand empty. How would he ever make a sale?

Very often I come across coaches who offer nothing more than “I am a coach”. You ought to have a clear, concise, attractive offer also known as ‘The Irresistible offer”. Mark Joyner defines the irresistible offer as an identity-building offer central to a product, service, or company where the believable return on investment is communicated so clearly and efficiently that it’s immediately apparent you’d have to be a fool to pass it up”

The irresistible offer has to :

1. Have a high return on investment: Two questions that pop up into every buyer’s mind are what is in it for me? Does the item’s utility to me justify its price tag? As a matter of fact, before you even get to be reading this article, the first question which popped into your mind was “Why should I spend my time reading this and what new is it going to teach me? So one strong pillar of an irresistible coaching offer is to offer a service that showcases as clearly as possible what the buyer is getting out of it. Always ensure that what you are offering is way more than what you are asking for it.

• Have a touchstone: “Get a coaching client in 4 weeks or your money back”, This is an example of a touchstone. It is one sentence that explains clearly what the offer is about, who it is for, and what the buyer will get within which time frame. You can spend weeks working on this sentence alone. It speaks loudly about your business and the people working within the business, their ethics, values, standards, etc.

• Have believability: Have you ever read a billboard sign and thought for a second, this sounds too good to be true? (lol). In the year the 2000s, in West Africa, there was a vague number of scammers who had flyers everywhere offering their services of how they could use magic tricks to multiply people’s money instantly, before their very eyes. Well, many fell for it, it turned out later that all was just an illusion. In the coaching world, you want to ensure not to pull any scammer’s trick and make your offer as believable as possible.

Step 4: The Right Marketing

According to the University of Havard, Marketing helps a firm in creating value by better understanding the needs of its customers and providing them with innovative products and services. This value is communicated through a variety of channels as well as through the firm’s branding strategy.

Despite the fact that Havard itself does very little Marketing due to their credibility built over the years, I will agree partially with this definition when it talks about better understanding the needs of its customers, a response to the understanding of those

needs is therefore communicated back to the target market with a combination of visual, audio tools to not only increase the perceived value of the brand but also create a fidele relationship between the brand and the customers.

I remember when I was in South Africa, I substituted my tv with youtube. One afternoon, as I was watching motivational videos on youtube, an ad came on in which a young great-looking female girl was sniffing the shirt of a young man from his wrist going towards his chest as if there was a line of invisible scent drawn for her to follow. That was AXE, the body spray. So I got hooked on this brand. It’s been over 10 years now and I’m still using AXE with that video playing in my head.

What is to note is the channel through which they communicated, the way they created their advertising content, who they directed it to, timing, most importantly what was the message this video was communicating to my subconscious mind. Here the message was that “If I was a young man use AXE, all girls regardless of how hot they are will fall for them and come crawling at their feet”. Guess what a young man at that age wants the most from a young girl? I’m sure you get the concept now.

Before talking about the various digital strategies on Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, etc, It is important that you get the basic concept right and create a clear image of how you want your coaching brand to be perceived and received by your target audience. Once that is done, you can then create a system that can take the person from watching that piece of the ad to keeping in touch with you and eventually turning them into a paying client.

The world has turned into a global village connected by the internet, and therefore several doorways for marketing are always open. These doorways are not just convenient to use but also require minimum resources to start with. You must devise a marketing plan for your business. Establish your own website, advertise it on social media, know your audience, interact with them and show them what you have got.

Here, you have to concentrate your efforts on the target audience only and never forget about the 4 Ps of marketing that is, place, price, product(service), and promotion

Step 5: The Right Aim

Ready- Aim- Fire!!

Ready- Aim- Fire!!

Such goes the order that happens at a US military honor guard 21-Gun Salute. This set of orders and their immediate executions which consist of firing in the air may happen for 10 seconds but the preparation behind them goes a long way.

According to General Kagame, few things are required from the shooter to hit the target. Calm in the mind, focus, concentration, vision, and courage to pull the trigger. All these skills developed with hours of training enable the soldier to become great.

Having the right aim in building your business doesn’t respond to any other principles other than the ones mentioned above. Building your business is about choosing what to aim at and what to focus on one step at a time. It is about the ability to have a clear vision in which a laser focus and concentration have to be applied in order to hit the target which in this case makes sales and grows your business.

While working in your business, it is essential to keep close to you a priority list. Different tasks in the business between marketing, sales, content creation, etc, can get overwhelming leading to a potential burnout, stress, and anxiety. The anticipated solution to that is to always accomplish one task at a time. Know how to manage your time effectively and measure your performance versus the time input and the output.

Step 6: The Right Implementations

Dr. Myles Munroe says that the cemetery is the wealthiest place on the face of the earth because it is there that you will find the greatest ideas and inventions that have never been brought to life.

What brings an idea to life is nothing more than the implementation of plans through which the validity of the idea is proven or not. In business, nothing gets validated except through consistent or repetitive actions which give feedback as to what works and what doesn’t. Without implementations, ideas and plans become as cheap as the lips which spoke them and the papers they have been drawn on.

As per the head of the department of statistics of Rwanda, there are a few steps pre and post-implementation.

1. Idea
2. Study feasibility
3. Put together a plan
4. Set clear goals within timelines 5- Take action, massive action
5. Measure the impact of the action
6. Decide to continue with the idea or drop it.

Within your coaching business, you will have to repeat this cycle with pretty much every decision you will make. The most important thing is to take action fast and fail fast enough to avoid wasting unnecessary time and money.

Step 7: The Right Circle

“Tell me who you spend your time with and I will tell you who you will become.” This quote does not only apply in the life of a person, it applies in the life of a business as well.

When I started my coaching business, I battled between content creation, marketing, sales, accounting, you name it. It was just becoming too much. I even went to the beach with my laptop. I almost never stopped working and stressing. The most stressful part was not the volume of the work I had to handle but the fact that it didn’t matter how hard

I worked, my business was stagnant. I was not breaking through the $25000 monthly mark.

So in my second year, I decided to take a huge risk, I took out a loan and hired two staff. One in sales and another to handle my social media marketing. These two people were what we call strikers. They were consistently innovative, came up with the most amazing ideas ever to interact with my audience and make sales.

These two stars took my business to the next level, I was now making over $100000 a month. The quality of people you surround yourself with within your business and within your personal determine where you are headed.

In order for you to hire the right people, you have to look out for people that are self-driven, innovative. People who are highly motivated and will not take no for an answer. It is however a challenging task to detect the lies of those who are trying to

impress in the interview process. You have to be on alert for folks who are trying too hard to impress and sound “too knowledgeable”.

Over time, you will develop the flair to search and find the right people to take your dreams and your goals to the next level.

To wrap it up!

Once you have decided to establish a coaching business, success is yours when you truly decide and commit to your calling. Good things take time, and so do businesses. Just keep up the good work and results will come your way.

Remember You Too Can Be Great See you on top.