by Eric Dombach | How to Become a Business Coach
In my 15+ years of recruiting and training business coaches, I’ve discovered there are three critical attributes every business coach needs.
They are:
- The right psychometric profile
- Sales and marketing chops
- Real-world business leadership experience
If you’re feeling concerned because you’re not sure you have these critical attributes, a word of encouragement. Most people aren’t born with “the total package.” Success in business coaching comes just like success in anything else–through good old-fashioned practice and experience.
The purpose of this post is to help you understand the attributes you need to acquire as you pursue a career in business coaching.
The Right Psychometric Profile
First, you need to develop the right psychometric profile. I’ve gone into this in greater detail elsewhere, but in a nutshell, a successful coach displays the following behavioral characteristics:
- High Urgency and Intensity – the drive to achieve and accomplish things.
- High Dominance – the need to lead, influence the outcome, and make decisions.
- High Competitiveness – the drive to win and excel in competitive environments.
- Low Self-Critical – the tendency to resist beating yourself up, blaming yourself, or finding fault with yourself.
- Low Willingness to Defer – the tendency to resist the opinions and preferences of others in favor of your own.
- High Self-Confidence – the tendency to think highly of your own capabilities, decisions, and views.
- High Criticality – the tendency to critique the performance and behavior of others.
- High Energetic and Expressiveness – the drive to have lots of fun!
When you read this list, you should get a pretty clear picture of the iconic coach. You’ll see a hard-charging, focused individual with an insatiable drive to come out on top by challenging and confronting failure and mediocrity in business, yet having loads of fun and inspiring others along the way.
Sales and Marketing Chops
Next on the list of critical skills every business coach needs is sales and marketing chops.
That’s because, as a business coach, you never stop selling.
In fact, there are six kinds of sales that every business coach must make in order to be successful. They are:
- Selling the prospect into talking with you on the phone.
- Selling the prospect into meeting with you.
- Selling the prospect into buying business coaching from you.
- Selling your client into changing their ways so their business improves.
- Selling your client into paying your fee for next month based on what you’ve helped
them achieve over the past few months.
- Selling the client on how it will benefit them to give you a list of their friends who also
need your help.
Many people think that they’re either “good” or “bad” at sales. That simply isn’t the case. Sales is NOT a talent; it’s a skill. And like any skill, it can be acquired.
Many people think that they’re either “good” or “bad” at sales. That simply isn’t the case. Sales is NOT a talent; it’s a skill. And like any skill, it can be acquired.
That doesn’t mean some people aren’t naturally more comfortable in sales situations than others. But like the personality traits, if you want to be successful in any business, sales and marketing skills are just something you have to develop. Period.
Real-World Business Leadership Experience
The third skill is pretty intuitive. The more business knowledge and real-world experience you have, the better you’ll be able to coach your clients.
Fortunately, this is the easiest of all to address. Even if you have NO experience now, any good business coaching system will offer extensive training materials to help you augment your education in marketing, sales, operations, finance, or what have you. I’m admittedly biased, but my own system has excellent information along these lines. But even if you choose another system, it should come equipped with the knowledge you need.
Plus, as you run your own business coaching firm, you’ll quickly gain real-world experience managing a profit center–your own! So this requirement is handled by virtue of the fact that you’re a business coach, which makes you a business owner.
For a detailed breakdown of everything you need to know as a beginning coach, check out our FREE ebook, How to Become a Business Coach.
by Eric Dombach | Business Coaching Tools
You won’t find much business coach training on the subject of rest. Many business coaches live as if the only path to success is through sustained, tireless effort. Hard work is undeniably essential, but so is rest. So if you aren’t finding time to relax, refuel, and rest up, you’re putting your business–and your all-around well-being–at risk.
None of us is superhuman. The more balanced you are in your work, rest, and play, the more successful you’ll be. If you deal with stress by pushing yourself, you’ll experience burnout, low productivity, reduced creativity, failed relationships, stress, and stress-related physical ailments. So go on vacation, take some time off, unwind, relax, and have some fun.
Here are some principles to remember when you find your motivation to rest up wavering:
- Everybody needs to recharge. Your ability to think and analyze deteriorates as your stress level increases. You have to remember that, as a business coach, your mind is your powerhouse. Give it the chance to recharge!
- Boost your physical and mental health. Studies show that stress and too much work can cause depression, heart disease, and stomach ulcers. Your money is better spent on good investments, not on medication or hospitalization.
- Improve your mood and attitude. Your main job as a business coach is to inspire and motivate. That’s almost impossible if you’re in a bad mood. Taking intentional rest helps you stay positive.
- Improve the quality of your relationships. Think about why you started your business in the first place. Odds are that it had something to do with improving the central relationships in your life. Time off from work is vital to healthy marriages, families, and business partnerships.
Finally, a word to the wise: when you take time to rest up, disconnect yourself. Email can wait. Social media will always be there when you return. Turn off your devices, unplug, and spend meaningful time with the people you love and the activities that refresh you.
When you take time to rest up, disconnect yourself. Email can wait. Social media will always be there when you return. Turn off your devices, unplug, and spend meaningful time with the people you love and the activities that refresh you.
Remember, you’re not only improving your productivity but your quality of life. Don’t just live to work. Work to live!
When you know you’re doing the right things, it’s easier to take the time you need to rest and recharge. If you feel overstressed and overworked, consider a FREE 30-day trial of our comprehensive business coaching system–and see if it can help you get a handle on improved work-life balance.
by Eric Dombach | Business Coaching Tools
When setting up your coaching business, one of the most important decision you’ll make is what business coaching CRM and digital marketing tools you should use.
To succeed in business coaching, you need a solid website, great content, and an intimate knowledge of your target market. But having a great CRM, marketing automation, and e-commerce system is just as important. Get this one wrong and you will be faced with a whole lot of headaches.
The good news is that we have a recommendation for you: Infusionsoft. (And no, we’re not getting paid for this post.)
Here’s why we recommend it:
- Combination of CRM, e-commerce, and marketing automation. Infusionsoft is an all-in-one solution where you can manage your customer relationships and sales funnel, take orders online (including automatic recurring charges from clients, which reduces the need to chase checks), and robust marketing automation that puts your communications on auto-pilot.
- Unlimited list segmentation. As a business coach you target a lot of prospective clients, but they probably fall into several distinct categories or personas. List segmentation, based on click-through, length of time in the funnel, customer demographics/profile, purchasing behavior, and more, helps you tailor your content and offers to your prospects’ and clients’ specific interests.
- Strong Analytics. One of the huge advantages of digital marketing is the ability to gather robust analytics quickly and cost-effectively. You can know almost immediately whether a particular message or offer is resonating, based on the real-time interaction it generates. Infusionsoft helps you understand what’s working and what isn’t, so that you can make fast adjustments. It even has a lead-scoring feature that will flag you when someone has shown signals that they’re ready to buy, now.
One of the huge advantages of digital marketing is the ability to gather robust analytics quickly and cost-effectively. You can know almost immediately whether a particular message or offer is resonating, based on the real-time interaction it generates.
There are a lot of digital marketing systems out there—everything from free Google products to software that will cost your business tens of thousands of dollars—but there is only one we recommend: Infusionsoft. Infusionsoft includes all of the options listed above and is easy to use and navigate, making it an effective method for nurturing new customers and growing your business.
Want more practical business coaching growth tips like this? Get a FREE, 30-day trial of our comprehensive business coaching system!
by Eric Dombach | How to Become a Business Coach
Don Vanpool had an executive-level position at General Electric but knew he wanted something more. So he decided to leave a corporate career to start his own business and executive coaching firm, OptaProfit.
He knew he wanted to scale quickly, so he researched options and eventually decided on the Coaches’ Coach as the platform to help him become more profitable faster. I had a chance to interview Don about his experience becoming a business coach and choosing the Coaches’ Coach as his support team. Here’s what he had to say:
Eric Dombach: What made you originally consider partnering with Coaches’ Coach to help you become a business coach?
Don Vanpool: I wanted to accelerate my coaching business and become world-class as quickly as possible. I also needed a framework and system that complemented and supplemented my skillset as a former GE executive coming out of the corporate world. The Coaches’ Coach was a perfect fit for me.
ED: What obstacles did you encounter when you first decided to leave your corporate career at GE to become a business coach?
DV: Coming from the corporate world, I lacked knowledge of the marketplace for business coaching SMEs. I need to know what worked and what didn’t.
ED: What were you looking for in a business coaching system?
DV: I wanted a framework I could learn and implement quickly while leveraging my years of experience. I was worried about being aggressively sold into an overly-complicated and over-priced system that didn’t deliver. Thankfully, I didn’t experience any of that with the Coaches’ Coach.
ED: What advice would you have for others who are deciding if they should leave a corporate career to become a business coach?
DV: You don’t need an overpriced franchise system to be successful. Find a good system you can adapt to yourself, and then work to build your own brand and company.
You don't need an overpriced franchise system to be successful. Find a good system you can adapt to yourself, and then work to build your own brand and company.
ED: What kind of results have you had with the Coaches’ Coach system?
DV: I started getting clients quickly, beginning with a tiny little client doing about $60K a year — LOL! But within 90 days, I landed a client doing more than $1MM a year and it’s right in my sweet spot. I’ve added at least one client every month since. Recently, I became a director of the Business Network International chapter in my area. I already have several strategic partners in just the first few months of opening the business.
It’s really a no-risk proposition to explore the Coaches’ Coach. There’s a free trial, and you’re guaranteed to be coached by a Certified Coaches’ Coach who has been there, done that, and been successful.
ED: Thanks, Don! You’re doing great and we’re proud to be on your support team!
DV: You bet!
Are you ready to make the move from a corporate career to business coaching? For a step-by-step guide to making the transition, check out our FREE ebook, How to Become a Business Coach.
by Eric Dombach | Business Coach Training
Most business coaches offer complimentary coaching sessions as part of their sales process (a practice I highly recommend). It gives you the chance to have an in-depth conversation with a prospect so that you can understand their needs better, and–most importantly–demonstrate your value.
But there’s a lot to remember in a complimentary coaching session: building rapport, finding the points of business pain, describing the right Silver Bullets, handling objections, removing perceived risk by demonstrating the ROI of your coaching fees, and finally, closing the deal at the right investment level.
It can be more than a little disorienting, to say the least.
As a new business coach, I remember feeling completely overwhelmed by my first few complimentary coaching sessions. I stumbled over my words, struggled to make a personal connection with prospects, got stumped by objections, and even flubbed basic business questions.
Still, each time I met with prospects, I learned something. And finally, after 20 failed attempts, I landed my first client.
The 17 P’s of Complimentary Coaching Session Success
Over time, I developed a system that allowed me to close an extremely high percentage of my Complimentary Coaching Sessions–some months securing a full 100% conversion rate! Here’s how I did it–I call it my 17 P’s.
Like all skills, learning to deliver a solid complimentary coaching session takes time and practice. But as you master the 17 P’s, you’ll find that your conversion rates–and your bottom line–will skyrocket.
Like all skills, learning to deliver a solid complimentary coaching session takes time and practice. But as you master the 17 P's, you'll find that your conversion rates--and your bottom line--will skyrocket.
- PACK WELL: materials professionally prepared and used effectively (hot bio, sales binder, agreement, and other pieces of marketing collateral you can either share in person or via screen share if you’re meeting remotely).
- PREPARATION: mentally attire yourself with a favorite song, pre-meeting script, and/or favorite testimonials.
- PROPRIETY in everything: even if you’re connecting digitally, remember to dress professionally, conduct yourself professionally, and be on time.
- PREMISE: ask them for details about their business and affirm everything you can while learning the language and culture of the client; if you’re in person, ask for a tour and then move to the client’s office.
- PERSONALITY: build emotional rapport by learning about the business first, then their personal life, and adapting your behavioral style.
- PURPOSE: use a stock purpose statement to review your plan for the meeting.
- PACT REMOVAL: gain commitment to your plan for the meeting.
- PROFILE review: demonstrate your competence and value by reading through your sizzling hot bio.
- PRICE: preview your price range with confidence and brevity.
- POSITIONING: explain your value using stories, testimonials, and confident statements.
- PROBLEM & PAIN: explore and identify your prospect’s top three problems and explore the related emotional pain.
- PRESENT the Silver Bullets: use your sales binder to explain in detail ONLY the Silver Bullets relevant to their problems and pain.
- PROPOSE COACHING: gain commitment to coaching as the best solution.
- PROGRAM AGREEMENT: read the Coaching Program Agreement aloud to a level of detail suitable to the client’s DISC style.
- PRODUCT CHOICE: explain the various business coaching programs and ask the client to choose.
- PROFIT EQUATION: demonstrate the power of coaching to deliver a return on cash using the Profit Equation.
- PRONTO: give plenty of homework in preparation for your first session to eliminate buyer’s remorse.
Looking for more great business coaching tips and tricks like these? Check out our FREE ebook, Secrets of a Business Coaching Rock Star!
