How To Start Your Coaching Business

Hello everyone!

As an ICF accredited coaching education program provider. I have been teaching NLP skills and coaching skills and certifying coaches, NLP practitioners, master practitioners, professional coaches since 2011. And it’s been more than a decade by now.  

And I can tell you there are some patterns and there are some action steps that you can take if you want to really truly create a coaching business.

If you are watching this video because you are curious, “Hey, you know, how does it look like or feel like to have a coaching business?” or “How it does look like to have a life as a coach?” Well, I have answers.

So, I can tell you a lot about being a coach, having coaching skills and creating a coaching business. I can also tell you what to do, what not to do. And I can give you some examples of best practices from my students from more than 36 countries in the world.

And I can also talk about myself, my coaching business, my training business. You got a point! I love to share it with you. But today, I’m going to share only 4 of those ideas.

1. INVEST IN YOUR COACHING SKILLS 

No-brainer, right? So, if you want to create a coaching business, you have a start by having coaching skills. What does it mean to have coaching skills? 

I will talk about ICF core competencies, and International Coach Federation has all these regulations and standards for every professional coach in the world. And suppose you want to create a solid, inspiring, meaningful coaching business. In that case, You have to start by improving those coaching skills, communication skills, and mindset principles and build yourself up as a coach. 

But not only as a coach who does coaching professionally, but you also want to invest in coaching, communication, and leadership skills and create this identity as a coach. 

But not only, as a coach who does coaching professionally, but you also need to shape this identity, this coaching identity, so well that you're not coaching. You are being a coach and being coaching. 

You shouldn't be forcing yourself to do something. But you should allow yourself to have these coaching skills, principles, and programming to flow through you, and of course, it's going to take time, right? 

I became a certified coach in November 2010, and we are in 2023. So, you can take it from me. It's going to take a while. But of course, where you're in life, your maturity level, your understanding of human behaviors and psychology, your experience in life, your emotional intelligence, everything matters, right?

You must always remember when calculating your time frame and your paths in building yourself as a coach when investing in your coaching skills.

2. INVEST IN YOUR BUSINESS SKILLS

Let's say that you have invested in your coaching skills and understand communication at a higher level.You understand human behaviors at a deeper level, and you can cultivate those relationships with trust, safety, groundedness, wisdom, and empathy, right? You have all those skills. Guess what?

These are necessary prerequisites. But these are not enough because we're talking about creating a business.

You also need to invest in your business skills. Creating a business is so different from creating yourself as a coach because creating yourself as a coach is about identity, your belief systems, and your personal expectations and goals.

Business skills are mostly related to strategic thinking, critical thinking, a money mindset, and having a little masculine energy when needed.

It would help if you stepped into power.You need to stop into your strong version, make decisions, move forward, and do it as a business, especially if you're doing this as a business with profit, not a non-profit.

Profit is about creating a machine that generates money, income, and profit so that you can keep it going. And that requires you to be comfortable selling, and you can be okay with talking to people about what you have to offer; those skills are different than coaching skills. That's why. As you invest in coaching skills, you also need to invest in business skills. What does it mean?

You may need to study different types of businesses. If you want an LLC or a corporation or a partnership, or if you wish to go solo, you need to understand how they differ when paying tax.
How do they get back to you in your life and to the quality of your life? You need to look at it from a legal perspective. What does it mean to have a business and how do you own it? And you know what I mean?

There are so many moving pieces, so you also need to study business. And you need to invest in those skills.

3. CREATE AN ONLINE COURSE OR A PROGRAM 

Well, because of our world today, it is so socially impactful and personally meaningful to create your course and your program and share it with others.

So, I want you to look at creating a coaching business as a step-by-step approach. 

• The first step was investing in your coaching skills, done, you know, that you have that, you're good at that. 
• Two, business skills, you've studied it, understand what you want, where you are, and how you want to move forward. 
• Thirdly, we're talking about creating something with your skills that becomes your product. Because when you create a coaching business, and if you're only relying on having one-on-one clients, that may not be as scalable as you wish it to be. 

That's why I recommend you create your online course or program and package it, make it valuable, and make it very transformational so that people want to learn from you. And they want to become a part of your mission, and you also have something to sell.  

4. PROMOTE 

Promoting what you create requires a ton of marketing knowledge, and you might need a team for that, or you might automate everything. 

It all comes down to your marketing skills. So, promotion can be at a small scale. Like you don't need to get scared, and you don't need to get overwhelmed because it's too much. 

Oh, what will I do with social media, email marketing, or Google? You can choose one of them and start with just one approach, just laser focus, create a product and create a media to share it, and go from that path, okay? 

When I started my coaching business, my strategy was "word-of-mouth Marketing." I decided to be a great coach with a significant impact. And I wanted to make a difference in people's lives, and I made sure I delivered value so that people could talk to each other, and that way, that's how I created my own business like that. 

So, you might start like this, or you may begin with an online course or an offer you give away. It depends on who you are. And how you want to design this coaching business.