Basics For Starting A Coaching Business
Coaching can be an enjoyable and well-respected profession. As a coach, you have the opportunity to shape your clients’ futures for the better.
You help them achieve tangible results, guide them how to overcome challenges and get results faster. In short, coaching lets you make a difference in the world.
Coaches help individuals and groups ease the process for a specific change.
What Do Coaches Do?
Coaches wear a number of hats. Before you actually set out to provide coaching services in your business, it’s essential for you to :-
- Design a coaching program.
- Create and implement a coach marketing plan.
- Work smart to attract coaching clients.
Subsequently, along the way, you’re going to have to manage your business, which includes things like :-
- Handling payments and billing.
- Dealing with customer service issues.
- Networking and cooperating with other coaches or mentors for a mutually beneficial relationship.
As a coach, you’re going to carry out some specific tasks as well as, have a number of defined agendas for your clients.
For example, you’re going to :-
- Encourage prospects about how and why to take advantage of your coaching services.
- Inspire confidence in your clients and help them to move forward.
- Listen carefully to your clients’ needs and wants. Learn to use active listening skills so you can let your client know you’re not only hearing them but that you want to help them with the areas they’re concerned about.
- Interact with your clients. Offer evaluation of their ideas (both positive and negative) and help them discover the best ways to do things.
- Empower your clients to grow on their own so that, eventually, they will no longer need your coaching services.
Coaching is different from teaching. Teaching involves training someone to do something – through techniques and strategies. In coaching, you explore concepts in a relatively flexible manner. You have the freedom to go in the direction that your clients want to go.
You’re working to help your client solve their own problems and answer their own questions.
Types Of Coaching
There are a number of different coaching structures. You might choose to focus on one or you might offer a number of different tier programs to your clients. Coaching plans include :-
- One-on-one coaching. This usually consists of about three or four sessions each month. Each session will generally last from 30 to 60 minutes, spread over a period of time.
- Group coaching. Group coaching lets you accomplish more in less time, and it enables you to reach a broader customer base than one-on-one coaching. Group coaching usually consists of between two and 12 people. You’ll typically host between two and four sessions each month, Each session will typically last between 60 and 90 minutes.
- Membership coaching. A membership coaching program is coaching on a massive scale. Clients enroll with a monthly subscription, usually to an exclusive website. Membership coaching may involve between 25 and 1,000 people, sometimes even more. This plan offers no individual attention and consists primarily of multimedia sessions such as video, audio, interactive worksheets and more. In order to keep in contact with these paying customers, coaches, normally host a webinar on a monthly basis.
The biggest difference between these structures – and this should figure into your coach marketing plan – is the fee. The more personalized the attention, the more you charge.
Offering more than one coaching program with variant scaling prices enables you to reach more people. Plus, it saves you the trouble of having to book lots of appointments in order to make money.
This way, you
dedicate the majority of your time with the ones paying the higher
rates. Meanwhile you can create low tier products such as an e-book, cd
or a home study dvd course so you’ll also be able to serve the people
who can’t invest in your high end coaching.
Coaching As An Additional Income Stream
Though coaching may be your main business focus, it might be a supplemental activity that supports your primary business.
Affiliate marketers, network marketers, infopreneurs and freelancers can all benefit by adding coaching services to their portfolio. Infopreneurs can generate revenue even before they build their own products; network marketers and affiliate marketers can use coaching to sell related products; freelancers can use coaching to find new talent to add to their stables.
Why Do People Hire A Coach?
Your potential clients have a need and they’re hoping that you can meet that need. There are a variety of motivations that will persuade a person to hire a coach, such as :-
- They’ve tried to do something on their own but they aren’t getting the desired results.
- They want someone who they can trust and believe in to help them get where they want to be.
- They’re looking for someone who’s already achieved the results they’re trying to accomplish.
- They want to find someone that they can spend time with, learn from, emulate and handhold so they can grow.
- They want this kind of help on an ongoing basis.
People want results. And they’re willing to pay to get the results they’re after.
In many cases, simply hiring a coach helps the individual be
motivated to achieve their goals because someone is checking in on them
and holding them accountable.
The fact that they’re paying for
coaching is an added incentive. It entices them to work hard to get
the results they’re paying for.
Coaching Niches
To better your chances of success in your coaching business means finding the right niche. Today, the most in-demand coaching areas include :-
- General health and wellness concerns
- Weight loss
- Relationships such as dating and parenting
- Financial areas such as business, career, marketing and even self-management
- Hobby-related areas
To
find your niche in coaching is just like finding your niche in any
other business. You need to consider your own interests, experiences,
strengths, abilities and personal history.
Ask yourself some
questions :- What are you good at? What activities did you enjoy as a
child? What excites you when you read the newspaper?
Identify a need and there’s an opportunity to coach. See who’s in pain, who has a problem or challenge. Look at the goals people are trying to attain.
Then combine that need with the areas you’re most interested in, knowledgeable about and willing to learn more.
