Here’s a distinction for you: helpful vs. effective.
I want to share with you how helpful vs. effective can be really useful when applied to building a coaching business.
The Helpful Stuff
When it came to creating and growing my coaching business, I was initially doing lots of helpful stuff.
I built a website, I created a niche, I designed my ideal client avatar, I did a branding course, I read a personal development book a week. The list goes on.
What I was doing felt helpful in the moment, in my opinion. It was helpful because it kept me ‘busy’ in my business. I was giving myself stuff to do so I didn’t feel bad about not having many clients to coach, and not making much money. I was creating a ‘busyness.’ Instead of doing what I deeply was called to (helping humanity), I was spending the majority of my time avoiding reaching out to people because I was afraid of how I might be received.
Doing the helpful stuff in my business was kind of like putting a plaster on a 2-inch gash on my leg. It’s helpful in the moment because I can no longer see the gash, but there is still a wound underneath that needs attention.
Those things felt good in the moment, but were not EFFECTIVE in moving me forward.
The Effective Stuff
Here is what is truly effective in building a coaching business:
1) Get into interested conversations with people, often. 💛
Don’t rely on them to come to you. They may have their own stories and ideas about themselves that are stopping them from reaching out. If you are living inside your story and they are living inside theirs, you won’t be able to help them. Get out of your head and start a conversation. Do what you came here to do. Create impact one conversation at a time.
2) Share your truth 💛
Don’t pump out content for the sake of it and expect clients to come flying through the DM doors.
Ask yourself: ‘What insights have I got to share from my own journey? What can I share that might help one person? What if what I share today saves someone’s life?!’
If you share your truth, people will resonate.
When they do, treat it like a real face to face conversation. You don’t ignore someone who smiles at you in the street, so don’t ignore a like or a comment. Do the opposite. Reach out and start a service-based conversation. You never know where it will lead, and how they may be impacted.
3) Invest in yourself wisely 💛
Be willing to spend money to create money. But when you do invest, ensure that you hire a coach / mentor that has created their business in the same way you are looking to create yours.
Do you due-diligence:
What approach do they follow? Are they an effective coach and mentor? Is spending time with them creating progress in your business? What do I want my ROI to be? Who would I need to be to make that happen?
Find out what’s worked for them and what hasn’t. Learn from their mistakes and be brave enough to make your own.
Then, and only then, pay them. Don’t pay them to begin working together, in the hopes that it will be effective for you. Pay them to continue working together and to continue creating impact in your life.
4) Learn the art of becoming a GREAT client
Just because you hire a world class coach, doesn’t mean you will get world class results.
Coach-client relationships are a 50-50 partnership. If you expect your coach to do the work for you, you WILL NOT get the results you are hoping for.
Who do you need to be to get the desired return on investment?
How will you show up?
A fantastic place to start with this is to read ‘How to get the most out of coaching’ by Karen Davis and Alex Mill.
Learning how to be a better client has massively increased my ROI from my 1:1 coaching investments.
5) Make mistakes. Over and over and over again 💛
‘Failing is not a problem you will face. Failing is how you will get there.’ Rich Litvin
I have made countless mistakes. I’ve received more than 100 no’s in the past. But without those no’s, I wouldn’t have created any of the yeses.
6) Create quality over quantity 💛
Don’t focus on getting 100’s of clients through the doors. Focus on serving a handful of people powerfully. Serve them with everything you can give and see what that creates.
One of my clients has renewed with me 4 times, and is strongly considering entering a third year of life & business coaching with me. Quality over quantity always.
7) Don’t rush 💛
These coaching relationships that we are building can be extremely powerful if we are prepared to take the time to nurture them. You don’t go out on a first date and propose by the end of it. The person receiving that proposal is likely to run a mile. Cultivate a relationship with them. Decide if you really want to work with them too and give them a chance to experience what it would be like to have you in their corner.
8 ) You can have a website but you don’t need one 💛
A website can be useful. It can also get in the way of you getting into conversations with people. Instead of directing people to your ‘About You’ page, INVITE them into a dialogue with you. Your website can’t respond the way you can.
A website may look nice but it is not a requirement for you to create a successful business.
9) Having a niche is also not a requirement 💛
You don’t need to have a niche to stand out and be successful. If it naturally develops then that’s cool, but creating it just to market yourself is not a necessary step to the success of your business. In my own personal experience, I found it to be at the detriment to the growth of mine.
10) Stop trying to do it all and get laser focused 💛
Focus on one thing at a time.
If 1:1 coaching lights you up, do that. Do what lights you up, not what you think you SHOULD do.
It’s ok to drop the FB community, the niche, the website design, the retreat, the workshop launches, designing the group programme and instead, focus on filling your diary with coaching conversations.
It doesn’t mean you can’t do these other things ever, but the key is to focus on ONE thing at a time.
Focusing on everything at once means I’m not doing anything well and this approach does not translate into providing an effective service or revenue for my business.
For me, it created the opposite of powerful impact and income.
11) Attach to the effort, not the result 💛
I have learned that this is the only way to enjoy my business – the good, the bad and the ugly. As soon as I attach to a particular outcome, the pressure comes ten-fold.
When I focus on showing up every day and putting in the effort, I have new, fun and creative ideas on how to serve people.
12) COMMIT 💛
If building a business was easy, everyone would be flying high and creating 6-7 figures each year. The truth is that being an entrepreneur requires commitment and courage to look at who you’re being. And when who you’re being doesn’t align with your truth, bravely taking action to come back into alignment.
It means dropping your ego and being willing to be wrong about things, and to keep testing things out.
Having this commitment with yourself acts as a powerful example to those you are serving.
13) Be an active participant in the creation of your business 💛
Engage in your business.
I used to sit passively behind my computer screen, anxiously waiting and hoping for clients to come flooding through the doors. My diary was often empty for weeks on end. The number of clients I had was totally static. No-one was interested.
Now, I am active. Everyday. It’s really hard to stay in a place of worry about myself, when I am actively out there helping people. I am out of my head and I am stepping into other people’s worlds. And I am coaching more than I’ve ever coached before.
I have created Becoming You – The Business Edition because I am taking a stand for what it means to build a sustainable, service-based business from love and action. It is designed to have you create impact and income, whilst unleashing YOU into your business. It is focused on living in your highest self-expression, rather than creating a cookie-cutter approach. There is no fixed formula, instead we will focus on who you are BEING as the foundation of everything you do.
If you are interested to know more send me an email and we can have a conversation 💛
