There’s a weird thing that goes on in our profession. We feel that coaching somehow transcends other professions, that what we do is special, and that it shouldn’t be sullied with thoughts of client acquisition or money. We identify as coaches, and that identity feels pure and important, and separate from the messy business of actually running a business.
However, if we want to find our own clients – in addition to any associate clients we might have – then we need to have a shift in identity and become business owners or entrepreneurs. That transition can be very difficult for some who are fully wedded to the identity of ‘coach.’
The question is this – who are you becoming? And does that identity serve your ambition to find people to coach?
The Identity That Holds Us Back
The identity of ‘coach’ feels comfortable because it’s what we trained for, what we’re passionate about, and what makes us feel like we’re making a difference in the world. When we think of ourselves as coaches, we focus on the transformative work we do with clients, the breakthroughs we facilitate, and the lives we help change through those deep, meaningful conversations that drew us to this profession in the first place.
What we don’t think about is marketing, sales, consistent content creation, building an audience, or understanding ideal client avatars. Those things feel separate from coaching and frankly beneath it, as if they would somehow contaminate the purity of the work we do. We’re coaches, not marketers, and we tell ourselves we’re here to help people rather than sell to them.
This identity of coach is a real problem. When we can accept that coaching is a tool rather than a vocation, we are able to move past the mind monkeys that keep us trapped in thoughts like ‘I don’t want to market, I just want to be a coach.’ Coaching is something we do, not everything we are. It’s a skill we’ve learned, a service we offer, a way we help people – but it’s not the totality of what’s required to have a coaching business.
This identity is holding us back from having the very thing we need to do the work we love – clients.
The Identity We Need
If we want to find our own clients, we need to embrace a different identity – business owner. Not instead of being a coach, but in addition to it. We are both coaches and business owners, and both identities are equally important if we want to build a sustainable coaching practice.
When coaches make this identity shift, something changes in how we think and behave. We realise that 30-50% of their available time needs to be spent on client acquisition activity. That might sound daunting or disappointing at first, but what we discover when we actually embrace it is that this work is rewarding too. Done well, it has a positive impact, and it positions us as the go-to coach in our chosen area.
The marketing work isn’t separate from the coaching work. It’s not a necessary evil or a distraction from the real work, it’s an extension of the coaching work, and when done properly, it helps people before they ever become clients.
The Resistance
The resistance to this identity shift is real and often intense, leaving coaches feeling frustrated and foolish because they hadn’t realised they needed to learn more than how to coach when they qualified. They thought that they would simply begin working with clients, and when I scratch the surface of this expectation, some of them feel angry with their coach-training provider for not explaining that the qualification isn’t a business in itself.
If we look at learning to be a teacher, nurse, or medic, those vocational courses lead to jobs, which is not the case with coaching. I have had conversations with coaches who are so angry with their providers that they feel they should bring a claim against them for misrepresentation.
However, if we compare coach training providers with universities, we can see that what happens to us after graduation – what we do next – is not the responsibility of the institution. They taught us to coach, they didn’t promise us a business, even if we believed that’s what we were getting.
A small caveat here – I do wish training providers wouldn’t signpost their coaches to directories or sales mentors because those things are not enough on their own. A directory rarely leads to work, and a sales mentor looks at a tiny moment in a potential client’s customer journey – the sale. Business owners must take responsibility for the whole journey, and that is a much bigger thing than sales.
The identity of coach has created an even more problematic situation. There is a UK-based company that charges its clients for coaching but expects its coaches to deliver pro bono. They are confident in their knowledge that coaches struggle so much to find clients that they will coach for free to build confidence and, crucially, because our professional bodies accept these hours as “paid” for credentialling purposes. This embeds the idea that coaching for money is somehow nasty or un-altruistic, that real coaches should be willing to work for free, that the identity of coach is somehow above the need to be paid for professional work.
The Transition
The transition from identifying purely as a coach to identifying as a business owner who coaches is difficult because it requires us to let go of the idea that our coaching skills alone are enough. We must accept that we have a significant knowledge gap in an area that’s equally important to our success, and we need to spend time and energy on activities that don’t feel like coaching at all.
For some of us, this feels like a betrayal of why we became coaches in the first place, as if marketing ourselves contradicts our desire to help people, or creating content conflicts with our purpose to facilitate transformation, or building systems undermines our commitment to holding space. What that resistance misses is that we can’t help people who don’t know we exist. We can’t facilitate transformation for clients we never find. We can’t hold space for people who never book a call with us.
The marketing work, the business owner work, isn’t separate from the coaching work. It’s what makes the coaching work possible.
Who You’re Becoming
When we resist the identity of business owner and cling only to the identity of coach, we’re becoming someone who struggles to find clients, who depends on associate work or employment because we can’t build our own practice, and who eventually gives up on coaching because we can’t make it financially viable.
That might sound harsh, but it’s the reality. The identity of ‘coach’ doesn’t build a coaching business, while the identity of business owner who coaches does.
When we embrace the identity of business owner, we’re becoming someone who understands that client acquisition is a professional skill worth learning properly. We’re becoming someone who invests 30-50% of our time in marketing activities and sees that as time well spent, and who position ourselves as the go-to coach in our chosen area whilst consistently attracting the clients we want to work with.
We’re becoming someone who has a viable coaching business, not just a coaching qualification.
Ask Yourself This
Who are you becoming? Are you becoming someone who sees business ownership as beneath you, as sullying the pure work of coaching, or someone who resents having to market and feels angry that finding clients requires effort and learning?
Or are you becoming someone who embraces both identities – coach and business owner – and recognises that both are necessary, who understands that the client acquisition work is part of serving your future clients rather than separate from it and who invests in learning what they need to know instead of hoping their coaching skills alone will be enough?
The identity you choose determines the business you build, or don’t build.
What Needs To Shift
The shift from coach to business owner requires several things. It requires accepting that our coaching qualifications taught us to coach, not to run a business, whilst letting go of anger or resentment about that reality and taking responsibility for learning what we need to know. It requires recognising that the 30-50% of our time that we spend on client acquisition isn’t time taken away from coaching – it’s what makes coaching possible.
It requires seeing marketing not as something distasteful or beneath us, but as an extension of our mission to help people, whilst understanding that business ownership isn’t about being greedy or commercial – it’s about being sustainable so we can continue doing the work you love.
Most importantly, it requires asking yourself this – does my current identity serve my ambition to coach? If identifying purely as a coach means we struggle to find clients, then that identity isn’t serving us. If resisting the identity of business owner means our practices never become financially viable, then that resistance isn’t serving us at all.
The Choice
You can keep identifying as ‘coach’ and keep struggling to find clients, keep feeling that business activities are somehow beneath you or separate from the real work, and keep hoping that your coaching skills alone will be enough.
Or you can embrace the identity of business owner who coaches, recognise that both skill sets are equally important, and invest in learning client acquisition properly whilst discovering that it’s rewarding work that has genuine positive impact.
The question isn’t whether you should identify as a business owner. If you want to find your own clients and build a sustainable practice, you need that identity. The question is whether you’re willing to make that shift, to let go of the purity of being ‘a coach’ and embrace the reality of what building a coaching business actually requires.
Who are you becoming? And does that serve your ambition to actually coach people?
An Opportunity
If you’ve struggled (or are still struggling) to accept that the identity of ‘coach’ is not enough, may I offer you an opportunity? Why not join my next free challenge, Nail Your Niche to find out what ethical, effective client acquisition looks like in reality? There’s even an option to upgrade to a VIP version, which gives you 3 x 60-minute group mentoring sessions with me for just £99 (inc VAT) – that provides us with time for a lot of conversations about things you may be feeling a misplaced resentment towards.
Recent Comments