I’ve spent the last couple of weeks evaluating our competition. By ‘competition’ I mean the others who are out there providing paid ‘solutions’ for coaches who want to develop a coaching business.
I have to say, I’m a bit underwhelmed by what I’ve found.
It seems to me that there are two types of organisation/individuals who promote themselves as the answer to the coaches’ prayer of ‘I just want to make a living doing this’. If you want to develop a coaching business, you might want to avoid both.
The ‘Just One Thing’ Guru
(I know you may have heard me talk about this before, but I’m going to reiterate my view.)
There isn’t just one thing that you need to do to ‘crack the code’ of building a business.
- It doesn’t matter how good a profile the guru might have
- It matters not how many testimonials they have saying ‘gosh, once I understood the one thing I had to do, money was pouring into my account’
- It doesn’t matter how many free sales webinars they put out – there is not just ‘one thing’ you need to do.
Part of the reason I get so mad about this type of coach support is that the purveyors of this myth actually blame the coach for being able to develop a coaching business:
- “If you have the right mindset, you’ll succeed”
- “Believe in the marrow of your bones that you can help someone, they’ll believe it too and pay you £££££”,
- “if you just understand this one thing …….”
This type of guru will try to relieve you of several hundred pounds for an online course which if you follow to the letter, will (apparently) lead you to untold riches.
The ‘Buy Our Tried And Tested System’ Brigade
This type of organisation will sell you their wares by telling you that building a successful coaching practice will be ‘a breeze’.
The language they use describes the six-figure income that you’ll easily reach. They say that you’ll become a ‘high paid coach’ (that’s not even English!) and that you’ll be an ‘elite’ coach.
Interestingly, this type of organisation is usually overseas. They have few (if any) who have been able to develop a coaching business in the UK.
The proof of this particular pudding is in the eating. This type of organisation can point to successes overseas, but very limited success in the UK. Yes, they may have a whole team of coaches, but those coaches are not making a living from coaching. In fact, most of their recruits don’t even make their initial investment back. Interestingly it turns out that the ones making the money in the UK are the ones doing the recruiting.
There are several of this type of organisation out there touting for your business.
Caveat emptor!
So….How Do You Develop A Coaching Business?
Well, you work out who you want to sell coaching to. This needs to be the following:
- The ones who will get the most benefit from what you have to offer
- The ones who can, and will, pay you what you want (need?) to charge
Once you know who you’re going to sell your coaching to, you then need to work out where they are; where do this type of client hang out both on and offline?
Then you need to know what you’re going to say to them. If you have a ‘standard’ marketing presentation you are going to fall flat. You need a bespoke marketing message; one that talks about what you can do for the client in language that’s easily accessible to the client.
When those three things are in place, you need to work out what to do next. You need to do those things on a daily basis.
Then you simply rinse and repeat.
If you don’t know how to do the above, then talk to coaches who have done it. That’s us at The Coaching Revolution.
If you’d like to know more about this (non-complicated) way of creating a coaching business, get in touch for a chat.