Take some of your own medicine
Have you ever heard the phrase “physician, heal thyself!”?
It’s a statement that expresses that professionals could often do with taking their own advice. To answer, how to grow a coaching business, coaches often need a reminder to take their own advice which they’d give clients!
In the world of business coaching, this is very true. It is amazing to me just how inconsistent some coaches are with their advice to their paying clients and how they conduct their own business. Many don’t have a current plan, a clear budget, or even good timekeeping, and several have stopped learning regularly and just rely on past experience!
These issues are limiting factors to success and prevent the progress for them in the same way as those issues and behaviours limit their clients.
Whilst they are great at guiding and coaching their clients to adapt beliefs, behaviours and attitudes, sometimes the coach needs to take a little bit of their own medicine too.
Many coaches wonder how to acquire new clients for their coaching business, and how to grow a coaching business overall. The reality is that it’s no different to growing any other company – the same tenets apply.
At UK Growth Coach we use the same tools as we recommend to our clients. We plan the same way, manage time the same way, and target growth and advancement the same way.
It’s about being consistent with our beliefs and the role-modelling we demonstrate to clients. It’s important to us, and we strongly believe that we should not be recommending activity to others that is good for them unless we are willing to commit to doing the same for ourselves.
How to grow a coaching business successfully means applying the same approach to ourselves as we request of our clients.
The areas we work into our action plans are based upon our ‘Coaching Star Model’, and cover 10 main areas for development in a business and its people.
This model helps our clients to connect with their ideal clients and scale their businesses. So if you want to know how to grow a coaching business, this is a model you will want to know more about!
The ten areas we cover in the model are:
Business direction
This determines the purpose behind the business. If the coach doesn’t know why they started a coaching business in the first place, it’s easy to become a bit lost or fail to make progress in any direction. They also can lose motivation or simply ‘cruise’ at the same level for a long time.
Company culture
It’s important for the coach to determine a strong company culture which reflects their own reason for becoming a coach. Without an established culture, it can be hard to create empathy or connect with potential clients on a meaningful level, and it’s often the case that they don’t build an effective and aligned team to support them.
Profit levers
If the coach doesn’t set strategies and targets for their profit levers, then they will simply be driven by market factors, or potentially plateau as they will repeat the same actions with the same outcomes over and over. It’s important for them to understand which actions are creating profit and focus their attention on them.
Financial controls
If the coach doesn’t gain control of their financials, they may struggle with cash flow, or have a lack of clarity on their own profitable activities. Working out their profit levers (from the previous point) enables the coach to better understand where the money is coming from, and plan accordingly.
Marketing strategy
Having a solid marketing strategy is crucial for marketing coaching services. Without a solid plan and budget, the coach will fail to maximise their opportunity to create initial and ongoing demand for their service. Effectively harnessing the power of social media platforms to find their target audiences will also help to ensure they don’t become outpaced by their competitors who continue to develop.
Sales strategy
Many coaches fail to realise that they are now not only a business coach but also the head salesperson for their own business. Without a continuously advancing sales system, and actively improving their skills, it’s possible that the coaches’ conversions will decline and their coaching sessions will lose value recognition in the marketplace.
Driving KPI's and gauges
Where the coach either doesn’t start or fails to maintain their KPIs and report gauges, they can start to miss important opportunities or suffer the results of unseen risks. Having these indicators in place enables the coach to spot issues arising early and properly respond, before they impact the business.
Systemise for efficiency
When their systems are inconsistent, inefficient, or ineffective, coaches can find the customer experience they deliver, or their overall business results decline. They may also be perceived as outdated, or no longer as relevant as they used to be.
Making sure that their systems are up to date will ensure that the coach has all the tools they need to succeed and grow without being hindered.
Team performance and roles
It’s very important for the coach’s team to be well-led, managed, trained and motivated. As often the owner of the business, it comes down to the coach to make sure that their team is as effective as possible – not only so that the business makes more money, but also so that the clients receive the best service possible, from properly trained and motivated staff.
Owner performance and roles
Lastly, but far from least, if the coach is not focused on their own development, role and journey, then they can simply become a job holder in their own company. If the coach doesn’t invest time into progressing themselves as well as the business, it can lead to a lack of motivation, and acceptance of mediocrity over excellence.
Continuously being ready to learn and adapt will make the coach significantly more agile in the market, and enable them to continue to grow their business for many years to come.
How to grow a coaching business with UK Growth Coach
These ten factors are as relevant to coaches for how to grow a coaching business as they are to their clients. Without proper focus they all have the potential to delay or derail the potential results and progression of a business coaching company.
If you’d like to learn more about how UK Growth Coach can work with you to unlock your potential and help you run a successful business coaching firm, then get in touch today on 01444 440 500.
