Being an Entrepreneurial Coach

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

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

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!

Don't put all your eggs in one basket

One of the most common mistakes that nearly every new coach makes is to only offer their coaching services. This approach can work if you are using one of the first six of the seven personas of successful coaches. That is probably why new coaches try it. But it doesn't work for Entrepreneurial Coaches.

As a successful Entrepreneurial Coach, you must earn the trust of your clients. Your clients need a way to "kick the tires" or "dip their toe in the water" before they buy your high-value/high-priced coaching offer. Offering several lower value/lower priced offers is one of the ways that you allow them to do this. Once their trust in you has grown, they will be much more likely to accept your high-priced/high-value coaching offer. Until then, your coaching offer will seem too expensive.

How to do this? Consider offering one or more of the following:

• A special report or article
• A blog
• A facebook group
• A LinkedIn group
• A monthly newsletter
• A monthly telecall (a great opportunity to interact with you in a more personal way)
• A book or e-book
• A workbook
• A self-assessment
• A brown bag lunch presentation
• An audio or video recording of you speaking and/or demonstrating
• An e-mail mini-course (one e-mailed lesson per week for six weeks, for example)
• A workshop, class, or course
• Group coaching sessions

Depending on your target market and the nature of your unique entrepreneurial offer, some of these may fit while others don't.

Don't give your coaching services away for free. This also falls on the list of the most common mistakes that new coaches make. Your 1-on-1 coaching is your high-priced/high-value offer. The more you value your coaching, the more your clients will value it.

That said, I do suggest having at least one offer that is free. I call this a "no barrier to entry" offer. Often this is your newsletter or blog. But it could also be your monthly telecall or a brown bag lunch. Perhaps it is a short workbook or e-book. Or a self-assessment.

They key lesson here is captured nicely in that old cliche "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." Don't depend wholly on your high-priced/high-value coaching offer to be sufficient on its own. Give your clients a chance to get to know you, to get to like you, to get to experience first-hand the unique kind of value that you produce for them, and to get to love you.

Take care,

-Steve

The Seven Personas of Successful Coaches

There are seven different ways to be a financially successful coach. I’ve captured each as a certain persona. Which one fits you best?

1.     The Celebrity Coach – This coach has a huge reputation among people in their target market. They are probably a best-selling book author or public personality. They’ve appeared on TV or perhaps been in the news (in a good way). Everyone in the target market knows them. They have a kind of celebrity status in their target market. They get clients based on the strength of their identity within their market. Examples are Tony Robins and Deepak Chopra. I’m not saying that they aren’t skillful. Many are highly knowledgeable and skilled coaches. But their level of skill isn’t what gets them clients; their clients come from their celebrity status.

This persona isn’t for everyone. Some of us don’t want the kind of celebrity that this persona requires. And some of us who do want it still don’t have it. If you don’t have the celebrity already, this persona doesn’t fit you.

2.     The Guru Coach – This coach also has a strong reputation among people in their target market but not for their celebrity. Instead, they are known for being a “guru.” They know more than anybody about their specialty. Typically, these coaches “wrote the book.” They are usually pioneers of new approaches, founded new fields, created new markets, or opened new kinds of businesses.  These coaches get clients on the strength of their identity as leaders in their field. After all, who wouldn’t want to hire the guy or gal that “wrote the book?”

As you can imagine, this persona only works for a handful of coaches. Not many of us can lay claim to guru status in our target market. If you aren’t a guru already, then this persona won’t work for you.

3.     The Superstar Coach – This coach has been very successful in life. They’ve made so much money that they really don’t need to work. They coach because they want to give back the support they received from others. And they want to stay active and do work that fulfills them. Often they were founders or CEOs or successful companies that made a big IPO splash or got acquired by a bigger fish. They took the golden parachute plan and now they are coaching. Whatever their path to stardom, they’ve been wildly successful and want to help others do the same. Clients hire these coaches because they want the same level of success, fame, or wealth in life that their coach has. It is not hard to see why these coaches get clients.

Again, this persona only works if you’ve already been wildly successful. If you haven’t yet been wildly successful, then obviously this persona doesn’t work for you.

4.     The Hyper-networked Coach – This kind of coach is very well connected within their target market both in terms of the number of people that know them and who those people are. Typically they have been working as an insider in their market for decades, often in the very roles their clients now hold. Take, for example, a coach who was previously the VP of Human Resources for Nike who is now starting a business to coach Human Resources leaders in the sports apparel industry. Usually, these coaches worked for several different organizations within this market and they have relationships with key people that offer them referral after referral. They get clients based on the strength of their referral network within their market.

Having a relationship with everybody who’s anybody in your target market is wonderful. These coaches find it must easier to get clients. However, if you haven’t spent years (or even decades) building a strong referral network, then this persona won’t work for you.

5.     The Contractor Coach – This coach does contract work for one or more large consulting and training companies. Instead of focusing on getting coaching clients, they focus on getting contracts. The company that hires them focuses on getting the coaching clients. Consulting and training companies contract external coaches as a way of scaling their workforce up and down in a cost-effective way. In times of plenty, these contracts are not hard to get. However, when times are lean, these contracts are scarce.

Often such contracts require you to coach using a particular model or approach. This works for some and not for others.

6.     The Internal Coach – This coach works full-time for a company or organization doing coaching or coaching-related work. They might have a small private practice on the side. What makes then viable is full-time employment with a company. The company pays them and provides an ample supply of clients. This used to be an extremely rare path to success. But it is becoming more and more common, especially with large multi-national corporations who are trying to cut costs by hiring coaches as employees instead of hiring them as external service providers.

This persona has many merits: full-time employment with benefits. However, full-time employment, working for someone else, isn’t for everyone.

What do you do if none of these personas fit? Many coaches don’t have a celebrity, guru, or superstar identity that they can leverage to build a successful coaching business. Many coaches don’t have a superb referral network feeding them client after client. And both contract coaching and internal coaching have limitations that rule them out as options for many, even if the economy is cooperating and producing these job opportunities.

Fortunately, there is an alternative – become an Entrepreneurial Coach.

7.     The Entrepreneurial Coach – First, this kind of coach has an unconditional commitment to renew the life of people in their target market. They become knowledgeable experts about the kinds of challenges that their target market faces but can’t easily address. They find new and innovative ways to address these challenges and turn them into unique entrepreneurial coaching offers. These coaches offer a unique value. This enables them to build a strong identity and a strong referral network within their target market. This enables them to get clients and grow a viable coaching business serving a target market that their passionate about serving.

This blog is dedicated to exploring what it takes to become a successful entrepreneurial coach. This is the only persona that is immediately available to anyone. It isn’t necessarily the easiest path to having a thriving practice. It takes a lot of sweat and tears. But this persona can work for anyone who is willing to put in the effort.

Of course you can blend approaches to being viable too.  For example, you might be both a Contractor Coach and an Entrepreneurial Coach. From what I’ve seen this combination is quite typical until the unique entrepreneurial offer takes off.

What is your persona? Is it working for you or not?

-Steve

P.S. – If you know of other personas for building a thriving and successful coaching business, please let me know. Thanks!