Have you ever had a revelation about your coaching business and then realized how much time and heartache it would have saved if you’d only known that earlier? Let’s share those flashes of wisdom so everyone benefits. Here are three of my favorites.
#1 You are Primed to Thrive on This Journey
Are you beating yourself up for not being who or where you wanted to be by now? Do you wonder if you have what it takes?
Everyone does at some time. The trick is… don’t wait for the proof of your bright future to believe that you can have it …or you’ll never get there.
If you truly want to earn your livelihood as a successful coach, then you have everything you need inside you to create that result. Believe it with all your heart and soul.
We know that most entrepreneurs fail before they reach their dreams. We also know that there are plenty of coaches out there making a great living. What we’ll never know is how many entrepreneurs fail because they quit too soon.
Don’t rush your development, foster it. You’ll get where you want to go faster if you slow down a bit and enjoy what you’re experiencing. You are already what you want to be, or you could not have imagined it.
#2 Your Coaching Business is an Unfinished Work of Art
Is your head so buried in details that you’ve lost track of the bigger picture? Are you belaboring work that could get done much faster, while your old materials hang out there broadcasting an obsolete message?
If you’re plugging away at your business by crossing things off your to-do list, it’s time to rethink that approach. Your coaching business is not a bunch of machine parts that you fit into place and forget. It’s a work of art in constant progress — a living, growing, evolving entity. It’s never finished, but keeps getting better as you allow it to find its way.
You are also a work of art in progress.
You’d never put a child’s developmental path onto a to-do list, crossing off each thing your baby accomplished. Instead you nourish, guide and encourage it, and then watch in fascination as each transformation arrives like a miracle at its own pace.
It’s your day to day actions that bring your coaching business into tangible form. When you think of your business as a living work of art, each day brings a fresh sense of creation. This mindset helps you hold two key perspectives:
- Everything is up for revision. If you want your coaching business to be a sustainable revenue source and to fulfill you, you must stay on your growing edge. Coasting on what you did months or years ago will stunt your business’s natural evolution.
- Nothing is perfect. Today’s creation may be better than the one it replaced, but it’s not perfect. So don’t even try. No matter what the task, driving for perfection means you lose out on the best way to develop your business — in the marketplace. Make it good enough and get it out there.
Then, connect with people in your coaching market every day. Listen and learn from them. Use what you learn to continuously improve what you’re offering (your products and programs) and how you’re attracting them (your marketing strategies and language). This is how your leads list, client list and income will keep growing.
As you nourish your coaching business — with your faith, with your persistent investment of time and resources — it will metamorphose into something surprising, beautiful and profitable, over and over again.
#3 Focus Is the Cure for What Ails You
Focus is the uber-solution for most of the challenges that coaches face in building their business.
Are you paralyzed with all there is to do, overwhelmed by all there is to learn and discouraged that you don’t have more clients or income?
Ask yourself this: What’s the one thing that most needs to happen, for you to move toward your most critical goal? Focus in on just one action right now that will help you leap to where you want to be.
Let everything else fall away from your consciousness while you complete that one action. Then ask yourself — what is my next high payoff action? And do that.
A high payoff action is bite-sized, feels a bit risky, and takes you out of your comfort zone. It’s the very next thing that will mean the most to your developmental path. For example, if you’re wanting more clients, pick up the phone. Enroll a new client every week.
The first and most important way to focus in is to choose a viable niche market. Once you have done that, it becomes much easier to know what to do next.
And don’t worry — finding a viable coaching market that works for you can be easy too. I have an eight week workshop that’s designed to walk coaches through the process (plus a whole lot more).
If you want all your efforts to result in ideal clients, more earnings and more fun, make it easy on yourself… choose your ideal coaching market now, and start focusing your business on championing that market. Coaches who have done this have saved themselves years of struggle and heartache. Everything they do is easier and more effective!
Your turn now. Please share the nuggets of wisdom you’ve discovered in the process of building your coaching business.