There are many things that you need to have in place in order to build the coaching business of your dreams. It’s a long journey that you need to take, and if you want to reach your destination, you need to live and apply these 3 foundations that I am about to share with you.
Knowing Your Audience Deeply
Knowing your audience is easier said than done. Over the years, I have worked with many students, helping them become great coaches and successfully launching their coaching business. One foundation I have always insisted on is to have is a well-defined audience. Since it might not be that easy, some might skip this step and consider everyone to be their potential client instead. It doesn’t work! You can’t be relevant to everyone. And because of that mistake, some of the best coaches might not succeed in developing their business.
Who are you targeting? Students? Entrepreneurs? Managers? Executives? When you choose your audience, go deeper, you need to know who they are. Their age, interests, hobbies, frustrations, and finally their challenges. Let’s say you are targeting students. Go deep, how old are these students? Remember, different ages mean different interests too. Next, what are their main interests? What are their dreams? What are they afraid of? What challenges are they facing today? What problems do they need to solve and why?
When you have clear answers to these questions you know and understand your audience in a better way. You can build a powerful connection with them. You can now create the right products for them and help them solve their problems. When you talk to them, they will feel that you understand them and trust that you can solve their problems.
I’m sure that by now you know that not everyone can target students. So, who is your audience? And do you really know them?
Continuously Developing Your Business
You might be a great coach and your coaching business isn’t growing. In fact, being a great coach doesn’t mean you have a great coaching business. It might be shocking, but it’s true. I want to remind you that you are an entrepreneur before you are a coach. As a coach, you are the product, but you can’t grow a business without marketing and selling your product. That’s why you need to learn how to develop and market your business.
First if you want to grow your business, please consider having fixed times and dates dedicated only to business development and relationship building. Simple, but most coaches might miss it! Fill your weekly schedule with activities that might increase exposure and link you to new prospects. Here are few activities: social media marketing, cold calling, networking, attending special events, offering free webinars, collecting emails, building partnerships with other businesses and more. The more time you spend working on these activities the better you become at them and the quicker clients would come your way.
Believing in Yourself
If you don’t believe in yourself or your services then how would you expect your prospects to believe in you and work with you? When you don’t clearly see the value you are providing, it might feel like you are tricking them to working with you instead. You might have worked hard on your coaching skills for years but still you don’t have enough confidence in what you provide. And that is a huge setback for coaches and one of the main reasons why they don’t feel comfortable selling their products. People will be inspired to work with you only when YOU have confidence and passion for your work. Always check in with yourself and ask “If I were the client, would I have signed the coaching engagement contract?”. And if you don’t have enough confidence yet or if you doubt yourself, take a step back and start looking for the real problem and fix it.
Don’t allow yourself to be in a weak spot facing a potential client. Instead be the coach who has a deep knowledge and passion, knows exactly what he or she solves and what results he or she gets.
Starting Strong
When you know who your audience is, you can build a strong connection with them. You can win their trust. And by continuously working on your business development, you will build exposure and start sales conversations with your target audience. Finally, and most importantly when you know who you are, when you believe in yourself and the value that you provide, people will be excited to work with you. These are the 3 foundations that you need in order to start and grow your coaching business. Where will you start?
