Do you think of yourself as a coach or a coaching business owner? Strange as it may seem, how you see yourself could affect your long-term success. Embracing the business side of coaching will shorten your learning curves and help you feel more prosperous all along the way.

Coaches that begin as “reluctant entrepreneurs” tend to be attracted to coaching skills and tools, but overwhelmed with the business side of coaching – marketing, innovating their own products and programs, creating systems. Their sole focus on the business side is getting the next client in the door. And when it comes to marketing tasks, such as launching a website, there’s a desire to quickly check them off the list once and for all.

Unfortunately this approach tends to chain the coach to the money for time treadmill, keeping their income low and their frustration high.

Coaching business owners have a more long-term focus. The idea of setting their own schedule and being their own boss has as much sparkle as helping others. They are risk takers who highly value freedom and the creative process. They find that being a business owner is a fun challenge and marketing feels like a game even if they don’t know how to market!

These entrepreneurial coaches feel successful more often, and make a better income, by focusing on and fostering their own:

  1. Business Vision
  2. Professional Development
  3. Creative Team

If you’re ready to embrace the business side of coaching but aren’t sure how, start by shifting your mindset to enjoy the process as much as the outcomes.

Foster Your Coaching Business Vision

Keep your “Big Why” alive — the reason why you’ve chosen to become a coach and business owner. Treat your business like an adventure. Be willing to be “bad at it” at first in order to become masterful. Remember, everyone is on a developmental path, no matter what they know now. Recognize how natural it is to be a beginner until you are no longer.

Don’t worry if your vision isn’t crystal clear now. It will become more clear as you learn and develop your coaching market and business skills. Manage your business so that it always feels true to your values. Move forward into the unknown with faith and trust.

Model your coaching business after other coaches and business owners that you admire. Then feel free to innovate and break free from the mold. Do it your way. Some of my favorite clients have surpassed me and become my teacher.

Develop Your Business and Yourself

To excel as a business owner, keep growing where it counts. Don’t get in the rut of buying every new ebook and signing up for every workshop. Go get the information you need right now to reach your goals directly.

Spend more time working ON your business than IN it.

Working IN your business is about maintaining the status quo — whatever income you’re making now – by coaching clients and fulfilling all the other deliverables you offer. It includes client management and admin.

Whereas, working ON your business includes all the activities that will actually grow your clientele, income and visibility. It’s innovating new products and programs while improving your marketing and product funnel.

Find time to work ON your business by:

  1. De-obligating your time as much as possible.
  2. Automating your business processes. Map out how you do anything more than once into a process then look for ways to automate it.
  3. Delegating tasks that don’t require your unique touch.

Build Your Creative Team

Every savvy business owner has a creative team made up of Virtual Assistant(s), a bookkeeper, a webmaster, a business coach or peer support groups like business think tanks and masterminds.

If you are investing in learning things that won’t help you be more masterful at marketing and delivering your core offerings, then you’re not leveraging your time well. Learning how to code your blog site won’t help you become a prosperous coach. Work with experts and you’ll more likely be hired for your expertise as well!

In future posts I’ll cover how to determine which tasks to outsource and how to get the right support for your business. But you can always strengthen yourself as a coaching business owner by nurturing your vision, sharpening your development, and building your team.