Coaching Business

Coaching Business - Limits and Questions for Your Business

When you're developing your own coaching business, it's important to have some simple rules in place to ensure you're on top of your game for every client, every call. A few days ago I broke one of the rules of my own coaching business.

I coached 3 people in a row. Yup. 3 people. 55 minutes a piece. 165 on the phone. If you keep going with that coaching business math... that also means 3 conversation maps generated. Countless breakthroughs experienced. Loads of fun in the process.

Now I'm not complaining because my coaching clients are freakishly cool people and I charge at least $200 a session... so that was also $600 in 3 hours for working with awesome people.

But here's the deal.

I make it a rule of my coaching business to not have 3 clients back to back because I want to stay on top of the things I send them afterward. Plus, I like to spread out my coaching conversations so I have a little downtime between each call.

The other thing I've figured out that works for my coaching business is that I like to start my morning early and end the day early. (My brain just works better that way!) So I love to do an early morning coaching session. Take a break to grab some coffee and read a bit. Have a mid-morning session and then do some creative stuff for a while. Then have a late morning session and take a break for lunch.

Then I have the afternoon to work on other projects and my overall business. That's not how everyone does it. That's not how you have to do it. I've just found this works for me and my clients.

But again... back to my day where I broke my rules a bit...

I had my three back to back sessions and then I had a consulting client request that I come over to their office for a bit of an ideation jam session on some of their new training. It was a paid gig plus I love the people AND I love their training... so I said "yes!"

Yes... I was crunched for time because I broke a few of my rules.

But I have to say that since we have contingencies in place for my coaching business and some pretty dang good systems set up... with the help of some really good coffee... we had those three awesome coaching sessions... we got everyone their follow-up stuff... I got to have a great time with my training clients... and we only had one minor thing fall through the cracks... which I caught by the end of the day and rectified.

Pretty dang cool. I had fun. I helped three of my clients move towards their dreams and I got to help a training clients create some smokin' training.

AND I made some good coin in the process! Yup. Cool stuff. So why do I tell you this story... and what does it have to do with your future coaching business?

PEOPLE NEED YOUR HELP

First... I know that some of you are thinking about becoming coaches yourself and I think that's awesome!

Honestly, there aren't enough really good life coaches yet and there are still a ton of people who need help!

ONE OR EIGHT?

Secondly, you might already be thinking about what your day might look like when you set up your own coaching business.

Will you want to coach one person a day or five?

I know we've had people go through our elite life coach training and certification that love to coach one person a day and others that love to work with eight!

So it's up to you and what you want to do with your own coaching business.

MIX IT UP?

Will you want to mix other things into your coaching biz?

For me, I love to mix in speaking and consulting. I just like a variety of things to do. (I have been accused of have a short attention span but I just like to call it "productive creativity!")

How about you? Do you only want to coach or do you want to do other things with your coaching business too?

SCHEDULES... SCHEDULES?

What will your day look like when you have your own coaching business?

Would you love to coach in the early morning and have the rest of your day free for other things? Or do you tend to hit your stride after lunch... so you want to group your clients in the afternoon? Or do you want to utilize group-coaching sessions like one of our grads... and do one or two sessions a week but still impact 10 to 20 people?

Again... the options are limitless. It's up to you!

These are all important things to consider.

Plus, these are all important things to plan for.

I know in our coach training, in addition to coaching principles and theory, we offer brass-tack strategies for figuring these things out.

We talk about things like...

Who's your ideal client?

What does your ideal day look like for your coaching practice?

How to have systems in place that will help you... even on freakishly busy days like I had!

How to maximize your time when you are coaching and when you are marketing your coaching practice.

How to market yourself with laser-like focus instead of the wasteful shot-gun approach.

Don't worry. This isn't a sales pitch.

I just tell you these things because I really suggest that you look for things like this when you're thinking about your own coaching business and for when you are selecting a coach certification. Most coaching courses offer a lot of coaching theory... but they don't help you with the real-world stuff like this. So when you're considering life coach training... keep an eye out for proven coaching business strategies and real-world processes for building and growing your own coaching business.

Make sure it's a core part of the training and make it a priority. In fact... I'd say demand it!

We've talked to way too many people who have made major investments in coach training only to find they have no idea who to market to... how to reach them... and how to maximize their day to grow their coaching business.