Being an Entrepreneurial Coach

Are you getting by or living into a new possibility?

As humans we always have the capcity to live into a new possibility. Declaring a new possibility is one of our often forgotten freedoms. But so often we get sucked into the everyday hustle and bustle of our busy lives that we loose sight of any new possibilities.

Keeping our possibility in sight tends to integrate our life, make our living more conscious, vital and awake. When we keep new possibilities in sight, we shift into a mood from which it is easier to build a new future for ourselves and our loved ones.

Loosing sight of our possibility tends to fragment and dull our life, making our life feel more burdensome than it really is. We drift and aim to get by.

When I coach, one of the most powerful aspects of the coaching is helping the client to always keep their new possibility - a possibility that moves, touches, and inspires them - always in sight.

What possibility are you living into? You aren't limited to one. But it helps to have focus as you begin to work with this practice. As a guide to your reflection on this question, consider the following domains of life. What possibilities are you living into in each?

• Health and well-being
• Education
• Play and aesthetics
• Career and work
• Friends and family
• Community
• Spirituality

Do you want to loose weight or become stronger? Do you want to get a new degree or certificate? Do you want to enjoy nature more this year? Or perhaps to spend more time playing with your kids each week? Perhaps you want to transition to a new career or start a new coaching business? Or cultivate more community in your life?

We can declare new possibilities in any or all of these domains. How will you keep your new possibilities in sight? Post them as sticky notes to your computer or refrigerator? Set up a daily schedule of practices (e.g., yoga, tai chi, qigong, meditation) that will be a daily recommitment to making your new possibilities a reality? How will you return to your possibility when the inevitable busyness of your life takes over? How will you create the network of support you need to stay focused on making your possibilities a reality?

Love,

-Steve

How NOT to build a successful coaching business

Here are my top ways NOT to start a successful coaching business:

1. Get so overwhelmed by all the things that you have to do that you don't do anything.
2. Interrupt your work regularly to doubt yourself.
3. Evaluate and judge the success of your coaching business on a daily basis.
4. Blame the economy when you don't have enough clients.
5. Try to build the whole business (marketing, business development, delivery, invoicing, etc.) before you get your first client.
6. Get business cards and build a website before you've even identified your market.
7. "Hi, I'm a coach and I can help anybody with anything."

What are your tried and true ways NOT to build a successful coaching business.

If you've made any of these mistakes, don't worry. Nearly all of us make these mistakes. What's important is to realize that they are mistakes and stop them.

-Steve

Rejuvenate your sales to renew the success of your coaching business

One of the challenges of being a coach is that you aren't selling results you are selling development or transformation. This makes coaching a unique service business. In a typical service business, like dry cleaning, customers pay for a well-known result - clean and pressed clothes. What's the equivalent "result" in coaching that every client knows, loves, needs, and values? In other words, how can you talk about what you offer as a coach in a way that clients want and highly value what you offer?

I believe the language of transformation, true as it may be, isn't that helpful. Transformation is a change that is so fundamental that no one - not even the coach - knows what the end result will be. In this way, transformation is mysterious. That makes it hard to sell because no one knows the relevancy, meaning, or value of transformation including the coach.  Selling transformation can only occur when there is lots and lots of trust. The same is true for selling development.

Here's an alternative.

What you offer, as an entrepreneurial coach, is simple: rejuvenation and renewal in an domain where your client feels burdened and/or stuck.

Rejuvenation and renewal opens new possibilities, brings new resources, finds new avenues to pursue, opens new ways forward, gathers new sources of support, enlivens and expands choices, nourishes and replenishes vital nutrients, and feeds the soul. It is easier to connect with this language than the dry and nearly meaningless language of transformation and development.

Who doesn't want rejuvenation and renewal?

Give it a try. What kinds of people are you passionate about rejuvenating? What kinds of renewal do you offer them?

Take care,

-Steve

Is your coaching business a journey? Yes and no.

Recently (here and here), I've written about leveraging the power of metaphors to understand your entrepreneurial coaching business and how to run it. This post continues this conversation.

Of Clancy's business metaphors (from The Invisible Powers: The Language of Business), the ones that seem to fit an entrepreneurial coaching business are:

• Business is a journey of renewal and wholeness
• Business is a game (with some slight but significant changes)
• Business is a biological organism

Today we're going to explore the metaphor 'business is a journey.' Stay tuned for discussion of the other two.

There are two themes that are part of this metaphor: 1) an impulse toward renewal and rejuvination and 2) an impulse toward unity and wholeness (as a way of making sense of the world).

Using the five criteria let's evaluate the power of this metaphor for building an entrepreneurial coaching business.

Mood: Renewal, rejuvenation, unity, wholeness, adventure, ambition. This metaphor passes the mood test. Check!

Values: Renewal, rejuvenation, unity, and wholeness are great values. If we use these as values as a compass it is hard to imagine the journey not being a good one. Check!

Goal: A journey has a goal. Broadly speaking, as an entrepreneurial coach, my goal is to serve the clients I'm passionate about serving and to make a great living doing so. Pass!

Path: The path a journey takes is often unpredictable. This is surely true for building a coaching business. A journey is fraught with risks and emotional ups and downs. Also true for us. But this metaphor doesn't say anything about how to navigate. The complexities of running the business are left out. At best, the notion that our business is a journey describes the riskiness of the endeavor and the ups and downs but doesn't help us build the business. This is not a generative metaphor for us. Fail!

Relationships: Successfully fulfilling a journey always takes support and collaboration with partners. But the metaphor doesn't really highlight the kind of relationships we need. Every journey needs a leader, a captain, particularly a risky one. But that's you and me! What about everybody else? This metaphor isn't generative for us as entrepreneurial coaches. Fail!

This would be a good metaphor to combine with one that was more generative in the path and relationship areas. It has some great strengths in mood, values, and goal areas.

Take care,

-Steve

But I'm not the entrepreneurial type!

Lately, I've been speaking to three coaches who are struggling about becoming entrepreneurial coaches. One of the roadblocks for two of them is their belief that they aren't the "entrepreneurial type."

Guess what? There's no such thing as an entrepreneurial type. Really!

There are those that employ the entrepreneurial practices and those who don't. This fact is what makes becoming a successful entrepreneurial coach so accessible to everyone. It isn't like a special magic that you have or don't have. It's what you practice.

It's that simple! Which are you?

-Steve

Is your business metaphor working for or against you?

Yesterday, I wrote about business metaphors and put a challenging question to you: What metaphor do you use to understand your coaching business? Today, we're continuing this conversation by talking about what you need your metaphor to do for you.

Designing the language through which you comprehend your business can open up new paths to success. Your language opens up and closes down possibilities. Naturally, you want your language to work for you instead of against you. But how can you tell if the metaphor you chose will work for you or not? 

Here's what you need your metaphor to do for you:

1. Evoke the right mood
2. Evoke the right values
3. Highlight the right goal 
4. Highlight the right path, the right strategy
5. Highlight the right relationships

Let's unpack these.

First, your metaphor must evoke the right mood for your business. Moods are very powerful. Just recall the last time you were resigned. You can't build a business when your resigned, can you? There are tons of moods that don't work for building coaching businesses. Here are a few more: being bitter, skeptical, frustrated, guilty, resentful, and cynical. None of these moods work. They don't put you in a good space for investing in your future. Instead, you want your metaphor to evoke moods such as acceptance, trust, ambition, optimism, openness, hope, and fun. These moods predispose you to understand the world and respond to it in a much different way - a way where future-building is more possible and more successful.

Second, your metaphor brings with it an implied set of values that must fit your business. For instance, 'business is a game' brings with it the value of being a winner and making others losers. Does someone have to lose in order for you to win in building your coaching business? I don't think so. So the values evoked by this metaphor don't work (unless you change the game to an infinite game). If you value partnership or collaboration in your business then your metaphor should evoke that.

Third, your metaphor has to point you in the right direction toward a worthy goal. For example, the metaphor 'business is a dance' highlights the goals of being in step with the music and leading and following your dance partners. This metaphor has a lot to offer an entrepreneurial coach. On the other hand, the metaphor 'business is war' brings up goals like victory through killing the competition. That doesn't really work for coaches.

Fourth, your metaphor has to point out the breakdowns that must be resolved in order to survive and what actions must be taken in order to thrive. This highlights the path or the strategy to be taken. For me, the dance metaphor highlights a helpful path. In order to dance to the music with others, you have to listen and move in a coordinated way with others. This is exactly what's needed to serve a target market with a creative offer. It all starts from listening, then follows with some creative moves, then more listening, and more moving. Round and round until something emerges that's fun, enlivening, exciting for everyone.

And last, your metaphor has to help you form the kind of relationship you need to have with others. Are you pushing or pulling your clients? Or neither? Are you partnering or collaborating with anyone? Are you solo? Again, I like the dance metaphor for coaches because in dancing the roles of leader and follower have a complex and intertwining relationship. To be a good dancer, you need to be good at both leading and following. It's the same for being an entrepreneurial coach. Don't forget to include all relationships in your metaphor: relationships with your clients, business partners, and community of support if you can.

Take a look at your metaphor against these five criteria. Does your metaphor work for you or against you?

Switching metaphors can spawn new and creative solutions, reveal new approaches to long-standing challenges, or uncover new paths and resources that weren't seen before.

A successful entrepreneur knows the power of language and leverages it.

Take care,

-Steve

How can a coach be an entrepreneur?

Being an entrepreneurial coach means being an entrepreneur first and a coach second.

What is being an entrepreneur like? Being an entrepreneur is like being a coach for a whole market. Whereas a coach works 1-on-1 with a coaching client to co-create new ways to live, an entrepreneur works 1-to-many, with a whole market, to bring them new ways to live.

A coach develops a powerful way to listen to their client's unique ambitions and breakdowns. An entrepreneur develops a powerful way to listen to their target market's unique ambitions and breakdowns.

A coach offers their clients new language and new practices that open up new possibilities for effective and fulfilling action. An entrepreneur offers their market new language and new practices that open up new possibilities for renewing their life often creating new kinds of freedom.

Both coaches and entrepreneurs improve the quality of life for the people the serve.

Being an entrepreneur first and a coach second means that you first relate to your target market. You work, as an entrepreneur to listen to their typical ambitions, unmet needs, and breakdowns. You build powerful entrepreneurial offers that create unique value by helping your clients fulfill their ambitions, meet their needs, and resolve their breakdowns. And how you fulfill on those offers is by coaching. This is how an entrepreneurial coach operates in a nut shell.

So, as a coach, you have tons of skills that translate into being an entrepreneur. However, working with a target market does bring some challenges that coaches don't face. The parallel isn't perfect.

Take care,

-Steve

What's your metaphor for your business?

As an entrepreneurial coach, you are in business. Yes, coaching may be your vocational calling. Yes, coaching may be the way you express your passion. Yes, coaching may be the work you love. However, at the end of the day, in order for you to continue being a coach, you must also earn a living from it. An entrepreneurial coach is a business owner.

As a business owner, how do you understand your business? How do you grasp your business as a whole enterprise (a funny word when it's just you)? Even a solopreneur business has lots of moving parts and pieces. What's your understanding of how your business works?

Historically, there have been many different ways of understanding businesses. Each of these ways can be encapsulated in a metaphor. In his book, The Invisible Powers: The Language of Business, John Clancy describes the most common business metaphors found in the business literature from the past two hundred years, including Fredrick Taylor, Henry Ford, Alfred Sloan, and Lee Iacocca. Here's what he found:

1. A business is a journey of renewal and wholeness
2. A business is a game with winners and losers
3. A business is a war with victors that survive and losers who are defeated or dead
4. A business is a machine for production
5. A business is a biological organism
6. A business is a society

(Of course, you aren't just limited to one of these metaphors. Perhaps your business is a machine for production in a war with victors and losers. And, of course, there are new metaphors being created all the time.)

Why is your metaphor important? Because metaphors create reality rather than reflect it. Metaphors simultaneously communicate to our conscious mind and our subconscious mind. They shape how we pay attention to things. They shape what we take as important and relevant and what we dismiss. They evoke a mood. They incite creativity. In short, they help us get a handle on our business as a whole and how to run it.

Of course, the danger of metaphors is that they bring a set of values, strategies, and approaches that may be totally broken for our business. For example, the metaphor of business as war. I don't know of any entrepreneurial coach who thinks their coaching business is a war zone. That just doesn't work.

And no metaphor will capture all the subtleties and nuances of your business. But your metaphor can help you avoid the overwhelm of juggling 

As an entrepreneurial coach, aka a business owner, what is your metaphor for your coaching business? 

Don't feel limited to the six options above. Maybe your business is a dance. Clancy wasn't researching entrepreneurial coaching businesses. And don't feel limited to just one metaphor.

Tomorrow's post will be about how to know if your metaphor will work for you or not. Stay tuned!

You can start think about this now. How does your metaphor help you run your business? What important parts of your business get left out of your metaphor?

Take care,

-Steve

P.S. - Here's a link to buy Clancy's book. It is one of the few books I know that explores the power of language to shape how we constitute and understand our businesses. A wee bit dated, but given there are so few books on business and language, it is highly recommended reading!

Advice about building loyal clients from "The Boss"

A year or two ago I was listening to a radio interview of Bruce Springsteen, aka "The Boss." He is well-known for putting on a superb live act. He summed up his philosophy about what makes for a great live performance. It boils down to a simple three-part formula.

1. Recollect the history that you share with your audience.
2. Play your new songs.
3. Find a way to capture the moment.

Ever since, I've used live performance as a metaphor for my live events and followed The Boss's philosophy.

Here are some design questions for your next live event:

What history do you share with your target market? Perhaps you live in the same town or city. Perhaps you've worked in the same industry. Perhaps they've attended a teleclass of yours. Or maybe read an article you wrote or your blog. How can you use the history you share to build connection in your next workshop or class?

What are your new songs? Your new ideas? Your new practices? Your new resources? How can you use your new material to open up new possibilities for your audience?

How can you capture the moment? Not necessarily with a camera, though that could work too. How can you be present in a way that touches each person in your audience? How can everyone walk away feeling seen by you?

The Boss's simple formula can be summarized as Connect, Open new possibilities, and Share the moment.

Take care,

-Steve

Reinventing Work with Tony Schwartz

Jonathan Fields, a blogger who I've recently been following and author of Career Renegade: How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love, posted a fantabulous video interview with Tony Schwartz, his next door neighbor. For those of you who don't know Tony's work, all of his books are worthy reads. And, better than than, some of his books (namely The Power of Full Engagement) have honest-to-goodness exercises and practices that you can put into action. His work is a wonderful resource for all coaches.

Tony has a new book out called The Way We're Working Isn't Working: The Four Forgotten Needs That Energize Great Performance.Watch this interview to find out more. Tony speaks about the four needs that are often unfulfilled: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Fulfilling them is the key to high performance and fulfillment.

Self-care is a must for every Entrepreneurial Coach. 

Enjoy!

-Steve