Did you know that only 9% of business coaches will ever make it past three years in their business (and, that’s in a year when we’re not still dealing with the lingering impacts of coronavirus!)…?
In fact, only 3% of coaches will ever truly “win”—that is, impact thousands of clients, and make six to seven figures a year.
Why do so many set out at the base of the mountain, but so few make it to the top?
What’s the UNCOMMON path the 3% are taking that the 97% are passing right by?
Well, if you don’t have a proven marketing and coaching system behind you, it’s easy to get lost…
Especially when there are so many good “trails” you could take…
Recording a podcast
Writing a book
Building a sales funnel
Launching a website
Crafting a new lead magnet
Starting a Facebook group
Running a webinar
Paying for YouTube ads
Where do you even start?
From Common to Uncommon
It’s COMMON to think that if you want to be successful, you need more…
More ways to reach clients
More social content
More sales pages
More followers
More, more, MORE!
But rather than doing 50 different things, you actually just need to focus on a few things consistently.
It’s COMMON to try thing after thing hoping it will work…
It’s COMMON to try to figure it all out on your own…
But, unfortunately, it’s also COMMON to not succeed as a coach.
Don’t you think you should learn more about the UNCOMMON approach?
Here are four crucial strategies you need to succeed.
Strategy 1: Master Your Marketing
Here I don’t mean mindlessly chase after every shiny new marketing object. Instead, I mean choose two to three of the following eight tactics and get extremely good at them.
Referrals
Networking
Social media
Content marketing
Direct mail
Outsourced telemarketing
Bold walking
Strategic partnerships
Strategy 2: Be Sure You Have a Successful System
Especially if you’re just starting out, don’t try reinventing the wheel. There are proven systems for both acquiring new clients and coaching them effectively, so that you can spend more of your time getting wins for your clients instead of spinning your wheels.
Of course, we’re partial to our own system (which we’ve diagrammed neatly below), but whether you go with Coaches’ Coach or someone else, find a system and work it thoroughly.
Strategy 3: Spend Time with Qualified Clients Only
So many coaches feel they have to chase every lead because they’re desperate to land business. The fact of the matter is, this is a recipe for disaster. If you let yourself work with underqualified prospects or problem clients, you’ll spend so much time spinning your wheels that your business will never reach the next level.
Let go of prospects who don’t fit your ideal client profile. Don’t take clients who can’t afford to pay you. If the client is a pain to work with, fire them. Free yourself from the stress, strain, and ultimate revenue loss that will come from pursuing and working with the wrong kinds of clients.
But beware! If you find this happening a lot, it’s an indicator that one of two things is happening.
One, your marketing isn’t drawing the right kinds of leads, and your messaging and targeting need to be overhauled.
Two, you aren’t being effective as a coach. Remember, selling is coaching and coaching is selling! They’re two sides of the same coin. So if you’re struggling to land clients, or you’re losing clients way too easily, it’s time to brush up on those sales skills.
Strategy 4: Motivate Clients to Sing Your Praises
It sounds straightforward enough, but you’d be surprised how many coaches get this wrong.
If you want your coaching practice to succeed, you’ve got to be a great coach. Period.
You’ve got to set your clients up for success with clear, consistent sessions that are organized around a strategic plan that has buy-in at all levels of the organization. You’ve got to use a proven framework that creates demonstrable value through proven business tactics. And you’ve got to build trust with your clients by being consistent and delivering results week after week.
Once you master these skills, your clients will sing your praises—not just in your coaching sessions, but with their friends, contacts, and colleagues…which will translate to more business for you now and in the future.
Remember: becoming an uncommon success isn’t luck and it’s not rocket science, but it does require knowing what to do and how to do it. If you want to be trained in a system that has helped hundreds of coaches crack the 3% of high achievement in this industry, take a FREE 30-day test drive of our comprehensive business coaching system. It will show you exactly how to master each of these four strategies on your way to being a top-performing coach.
Why is it that so many successful business coaches talk about building habits?
It’s because small habits make a huge impact.
In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about the exponential impact of even tiny improvements. If you get just 1% better at something every day for a year, it creates a virtuous cycle that skyrockets growth.
The same isn’t true of deterioration, because even stagnation stagnates!
There is something uniquely powerful about small, incremental changes.
See the chart below for an incredible visualization of this powerful principle.
But what are the habits you should develop in order to become a successful business coach?
Here are six “atomic habits” for business coaches, divided into three basic categories, that will help you become who you want to be.
Attitude
First, get your mindset right. This has to do with making sure you’re centered on what matters most. The chart below gives you two habits to master over the short-, medium-, and long-term.
The first has to do with setting your vision for yourself: what do you want to achieve? Why do you want to achieve it?
The second has to do with creating a relationship with your goals, starting by creating bite-sized, week-long goals that you actually achieve, and working from there with your forward momentum!
Activity
This second category has to do with making sure that you do enough of the right things. You can repeat all the affirmations in the world, but until you translate them into action, you won’t see much progress.
Your first habit is to master your calendar. The way you manage your time is the bedrock of all success!
The second habit is to learn how to set boundaries: that is, to determine which activities are non-negotiable, and to learn to stick with them, no matter what.
Acumen
This third category has to do with the time and energy you spend investing in yourself to proactively get better. As a business coach, you are the product you’re selling! Your knowledge, your emotional intelligence, and your skills to help coach clients to the results they want. Thus, you need to create habits that will help you improve yourself.
The first habit in this category is that of reading regularly. The most successful people in the world, regardless of industry, have one thing in common: they read, they read, they read.
The second is to invest in yourself—your growth, your learning, your skills. You are worth the investment.
If you’re at the beginning of your business coaching journey, learn more about what else you need to know in order to succeed! Download our FREE ebook, How to Become a Business Coach.
Should you aim to be a local or global business coach?
If you’re considering a business coaching franchise, it might not even be a question you can ask. In most cases, business coaching franchisors restrict you to a local market.
They say it’s a benefit. But is it really?
The fact is, in 90% of cases it’s easier to go global than it is to go local because the number of people in your set target market is going to be infinitely bigger and you can leverage technology today in ways you just can’t with a local market.
In the past, I’ve seen coaches with franchised or licensed business coaching systems who slice up their territories into little boxes. The coaches feel like, “Great! I own this area and no one else can come in. It’s all mine!”
Who really benefits from a local restriction?
But think about this logically for a moment. Who really benefits from a local restriction?
Well, obviously the person who sold you the franchise for that little patch of ground benefits from that arrangement. It allows them to slice up an area and sell more franchises and licenses!
You, on the other hand, get no real benefit from limiting yourself geographically.
The person who sold you the franchise for that little patch of ground benefits from that arrangement. It allows them to slice up an area and sell more franchises and licenses! You, on the other hand, get no real benefit from limiting yourself geographically.
I even heard one coach say “I own this area, it keeps competitors out.”
Well, I’ve got bad news for you. It doesn’t keep any competitors out. It restricts other people in the same license or franchise group as you. For everyone else, your patch is wide open.
So should you be a local or global business coach?
Don’t try to be local. National makes sense, especially if you have a live face-to-face component to your program or you run events.
But if you’re a coach with expertise or a message to share, then global is where it’s at.
For me the answer is: local is difficult, national is easy, global is easiest of all.
One of the biggest shifts I help business coaches make is coming to see their time as their most valuable commodity.
Want to get paid well? Value your time.
Want to command the respect of your clients? Value your time.
Want to leapfrog to the top of this industry? Value your time.
I can already hear the protests: “I have to ‘over-deliver’ or I’ll lose my coaching contracts! I can’t keep clients around unless I hold their hand through the whole process!”
Nonsense.
“Over-delivering” signals to your coaching clients that you’re the same as any other contractor or employee they work with.
But business coaches aren’t contractors. They’re treasured experts.
If you need to wrap your head around this better, go back and read my classic post, Be a Coach, Not a Consultant.
If your clients are complaining that you’re not holding their hand enough, it’s because they don’t believe in you as a genuine coach. You’ve positioned yourself as some sort of grunt laborer, NOT a genuine expert.
It’s time to change that.
If your clients are complaining that you're not holding their hand enough, it's because they don't believe in you as a genuine coach. You've positioned yourself as some sort of grunt laborer, NOT a genuine expert.
You have to realize that your time, your experience, your expertise, are inherently valuable…that you really can make a difference in your clients’ businesses…that as a result, you deserve their undivided attention.
Look, as business coaches, our inventory of time is all we’ve got. When managed properly, we can create a lifestyle of connection, impact, and affluence.
When managed improperly, we give away our most valuable resource for free, setting ourselves up as just another contractor, subject to the whims of the business owner.
So stop driving to your clients’ offices or coffee shops for consultations.
Don’t drop everything when they call with a question or a problem; let them know you’re busy, and schedule a follow up.
Do your coaching sessions over the phone.
Value your time and expertise like the priceless commodity it is.
Only then will you begin to command the kind of respect you deserve.
What other techniques and mindset shifts do you need to master in order to become more successful as a business coach? Get a FREE 30-day trial of our comprehensive business coaching system today!
Today I want to answer another frequently asked question that we get from business coaches around the world, which is: why isn’t my business coaching franchise working?
Many business coaching franchisees purchased a franchise because they thought it would be a faster, cheaper way to begin raking in six-figure paychecks.
The problem is, those kinds of successes for business coaching franchisees are the exceptions, rather than the rule.
So why do some franchisees fail?
In my decades of experience in the business coaching franchise industry, I’ve seen that most reasons for failure fall into one of these five categories:
Category # 1. You’ve taken on too much of a financial burden.
You spent $50,000 to $200,000 of your war chest buying the franchise and getting your business started, and you have not been able to move through the learning curve fast enough to get the business up and running and cash flowing. Buying a business coaching franchise exposes you to a lot of risk because you spend such a significant amount to get into business. Then you’re in danger of running out of cash before you actually have the business up and running.
Buying a business coaching franchise exposes you to a lot of risk because you spend such a significant amount to get into business, you're in danger of running out of cash before you actually have the business up and running.
Most business coaching franchisees provide pretty limited support after you go through their initial training. That’s not enough when you’re learning a business as skilled and specific as business coaching. The most successful coaches have a coaches’ coach! But most business coaching franchises limit their support to group coaching calls, conferences, and training measures. It’s hard to succeed that way.
Category # 3. You invested in a system that doesn’t work.
There are a lot of unscrupulous people out there selling business coaching franchise systems that aren’t actually proven in the field. Sometimes you get a high-profile, gifted, successful trainer who goes out to the marketplace and starts selling their system before they’ve even proven that it works for anybody besides themselves.
Category #4. Too many franchise limitations.
A lot of business coaching franchise rules will limit where you can do business. But in order to be successful as a business coach, you need to market yourself to a specific and well-defined niche of business owners who respond well to who you are and what you have to offer. If you’re limited to doing business within a certain geographical area, that’s a limitation that may cause you to struggle.
Category #5. You don’t fit the psychometric profile of successful business coaches.
Over the last several years, there’s been a lot of reliable research conducted on the psychometric profiles of successful business coaches. The problem is that there are very few, if any, business coaching franchisors who have examined these criteria and recruited coaches who match. The only thing they use to decide whether or not to sell you a franchise is if you have the money to pay for it. Not exactly scrupulous–but it’s the way things are. (By the way, if you go to www.succeedinbusinesscoaching.com, you can download a free report and learn more about the psychometric profile that predicts success in business coaching.)
For more great insights like these, check out The Business Coaching Franchise Buyer’s Guide—and learn more about the business coaching industry and what may and may not be going well for you.
