The industry-wide statistics on the percentage of trained coaches that are making a living from coaching are sad. It is a very small percentage. Why?
Mistake #1: Prioritizing coaching over being in business.
I've spoken to hundres of coaches - both successful and struggling. And I noticed a pattern. The coaches that were businesspeople first and coaches second where actually doing more coaching and earning a better living than the coaches that assumed the business stuff would take care of itself.
The coaches that didn't address the business part but loved the coaching part were doing must less coaching and struggling to make ends meet.
In fact, from what I can tell, the quality of your coaching skill doesn't correlate to how many clients you get. I know many very skilled coaches that are struggling. And, on the other hand, I know many skilled businesspeople (that are less skilled as coaches) that have more coaching clients than they handle.
Mistake #2: Thinking of yourself as a coach.
Coaching is a lifestyle business. People are called into coaching because they want to help others. They want to be a coach. But again, when I spoke to successful coaches, the pattern I noticed was that they think of themselves as entrepreneurs first and coaches second.
It turns out that the lifestyle that works is that of an entrepreneur - an entrepreneur who coaches not a coach who sells coaching. This may seem like a small shift in perspective, but the difference in income is huge.
Mistake #3: Selling coaching services.
The coaches that succeed know that they are selling results that have important benefits for their clients. They focus on selling results with benefits. And how they fulfill on their promise of these results and benefits is through coaching.
Here's why it doesn't work. In a way, selling coaching services is like saying "I build things, hire me." If you say this, how much business do you think you'll get? Can you build skyscrapers, bridges, houses, or cabinets? Those are very different things requiring very different skills. Without being more specific about the results you are promising, you'll never be hired to build anything. Coaching is like building. You can't sell it. But you can sell results that you deliver through your coaching.
These so-called mistakes don't seem like mistakes at first. In fact, they seem like exactly the right thing to do: Be a coach, focus on coaching, get good at it, and sell coaching. And from a certain perspective, this is what you do. Except you have to do something else first - be an entrepreneur.
I call the coaches that succeed in building a thriving coaching business - the ones that don't make these mistakes - "entrepreneurial coaches." They are entrepreneurs in business first and coaches second. And because of this, they actually attract more clients, do more coaching, and early more money.
I have gathered the entrepreneurial practices used by entrepreneurial coaches to build thriving coaching businesses into a system.
Here's why being an entrepreneurial coach works. Your offer is seen as relevant, meaningful, and valuable by people in your target market. They know you can deliver what they need. You actively build an identity of care, credibility, trust, and value. And you actively build a network of people that love you and the unique value that you bring to them and want to refer you to others. The power of your unique entrepreneurial offer, your unique identity, and your unique network of referrers enables you to build a thriving coaching business.
If you 1) declare yourself to be an entrepreneurial coach and 2) use all the entrepreneurial practices in the system you will attract more clients - the clients you love to work with, do more coaching, and earn more money.
And, most importantly, you will feel the joy and satisfaction of building a thriving coaching business that serves the people you are most passionate about serving.
I'm excited to bring this new approach to building a coaching business to coaches that are struggling to make a living doing the work they so passionately love. I want to see more coaches coaching in the world and making a living doing so. Why? Because I believe that, as a society, we must learn new ways of living and working in order to survive. And coaching is ideally suited to support the learning we need. I want to live in a world in which we are finding new ways to address the challenges we face. That's the world I'm committed to bring to life. To make this possibility a reality, I am committed to helping coaching build thriving coaching businesses, do more coaching, and earn more than enough money to keep doing it.
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