Setting a Vision for Your Business Coaching Practice

Setting a Vision for Your Business Coaching Practice

Here at the Coaches’ Coach, we are relentlessly insistent that all of our coaches set a crystal clear vision for their business coaching practice. That’s because, more than anything else, achieving your sales goals is about keeping yourself in a healthy, resourceful mental state––no matter what. We do that by focusing our thinking on the right things.

I’m sure you’re like me in this: I do the things that I do every day because of a very powerful sense of purpose I have for living my life on earth. I’m focused every minute of every day of my life on the things that matter most to me: loving God, serving my wife and kids, taking great care of my clients, being a blessing at my church, and serving the missions I care about. Every day I make a deliberate decision to do the things TODAY that will get me where I’m going.

Here are the tools I use to sharpen my focus.

Vision Book

The first is a vision book. Most people use a PowerPoint slide deck to create it. You can download the template I use on our free resources page.

Every day I make a deliberate decision to do the things TODAY that will get me where I’m going.

Most mornings I spend just a few minutes contemplating my vision book. To stay in the right frame of mind, I remind myself frequently of the future I want to have and stay focused on my vision and goals. I don’t focus on money, because money is simply a means to an end. I focus on the things I’m living for. 

I like to organize my vision around what I call “the 7 F’s” of a full life:

    1. Faith
    2. Fidelity
    3. Family
    4. Friends
    5. Finances
    6. Fitness
    7. Fun

In December of each year, I go through the 7 F’s and I think about the vision and desires I have for my life in each one of these areas. Then I craft one or several slides for each category to remind myself of the connection between achieving my sales goals and my ability to live the kind of life I want to live and to achieve the vision I have. When I craft my vision book, I use a combination of pictures and language to stimulate both the visual and auditory parts of my brain. 

7 F’s SWOT Analysis

Some people have a tough time figuring out what to put in their vision book. If that’s you, then I recommend that you conduct a “7 Fs SWOT Analysis.” This technique is designed to help you think reflectively about what you really want to achieve. In each of the 7F categories, briefly identify the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats that you’re aware of. Then identify one to three goals for each category. Don’t put pressure on yourself! Evaluate each category only to the extent that it feels natural and easy. Don’t force anything that doesn’t flow naturally. Some categories will have lots of energy and some will have little or none. This exercise is designed to facilitate grateful reflection and deliberate action and improvement. Above all, enjoy!

Business Vision Document

I’ll never forget when I drafted my first “Business Vision” document. I was flying home from a business coaching conference and I’d been totally inspired by what some other business coaches around the world were doing. I decided then and there to take my business from a practice to a firm and to grow from around $440k to over $1M in the upcoming year. Over the course of that several-hour-long flight, I banged out what my business would look like, and it became the inspiration for all my hard work over next several months.

Sure enough, a couple years later, the vision had been achieved and I had my $1M firm. But there’s no telling what would have happened had I not committed myself to growing my business, setting down the vision with crystal clear specificity in my business vision document, and then committing to it.

How about you? Do you have a vision that gets you up in the morning, that pushes you forward when times get tough, that keeps you grounded in your goals and the life you want to achieve? If not, now’s the time to put one in place.

And for more tools, templates, and techniques like these, get a FREE 30-day trial of our comprehensive business coaching system!

Three Steps to Onboarding New Coaching Clients

Three Steps to Onboarding New Coaching Clients

You have a new coaching client. Congratulations! But did you know that how you onboard them can make all the difference in terms of how successful your relationship will be? Here are three steps to onboarding new coaching clients in ways that will help your clients get both quick revenue-positive improvements and create a long-term strategic plan to build momentum over time.

First, when you bring on a new client, hold a four-hour strategic planning session with the key stakeholders in the business. The strategic plan is about the future: planning, strategizing, goal-setting. Charge them a strategic planning fee equal to their first month of coaching. This is in addition to their first month of coaching! Schedule their strategic planning session as soon as possible; you don’t want to wait more than a couple of weeks.

Over the years, I’ve heard coaches say, “Well, look, I’ll just do the strategic planning stuff and won’t charge a client extra for that. We’ll have weekly coaching sessions, and I’ll do the other coaching sessions for free.” But why would you do that? Just about every professional service you go to charges a set-up or initial fee to get started.

It’s easy to position this to your client. Say, “Look, I gotta take you through a process of Strategic Planning and goal setting and to make sure we have a really good foundation for this relationship and get things on the right track. But I’m also going to do short-range stuff with you right away to help you get more cash flow, or more clients, or deal with some pain areas in your time––whatever it is. Once we get through the first few months of planning, then we’ll just have our weekly coaching sessions to make sure we’re staying on track, hitting those goals, and executing against the plan. So we’re going to do both at once.”

Second, commence their weekly coaching calls as soon as you collect the money. When coaches spend too much time on the strategic planning process upfront and fail to begin having normal weekly coaching sessions focused on strategies that produce quick time and cash flow, this will result in a failed business coaching engagement. The strategic plan is crucial, but if you wait several weeks or months to get started with strategies that produce quick time and cash flow, especially in a cash-strapped business, you can lose your client literally within the first month. They’ll think, “I’ve just burned through thousands of dollars and all I’ve got is a strategic plan! Nothing has changed in my business, I’m not making more profit, and I’m just burning through cash.” And the coaching engagement ends right there––you get a Dear John email saying, “Thanks, but we’re done.” 

Commence their weekly coaching calls as soon as you collect the money. When coaches spend too much time on the strategic planning process upfront and fail to begin having normal weekly coaching sessions focused on strategies that produce quick time and cash flow, this will result in a failed business coaching engagement.

Third, hold a “team day.” A team day is for businesses with the equivalent of at least five full-time team members. Conduct it in the second or third month of the program. The purpose is to unify the team behind the strategic plan and jumpstart the coaching program for maximum results. Introduce the team to the work that’s been done so far, and help the business owner get buy-in.

If you follow these three steps, you’ll set yourself up for long-term success with your new business coaching clients. For more great strategies like this, check out our FREE ebook, Secrets of a Business Coaching Rock Star.

New Business Coaching Practice Start-Up Checklist

New Business Coaching Practice Start-Up Checklist

So you’ve decided to become a business coach. Congratulations! It’s the best gig in the world! But what do you need to do in order to get your business coaching practice off the ground?

Here’s my industry-renowned new business coaching practice start-up checklist to walk you through the entire process!

(Want this in a convenient downloadable PDF? Download our resources package; it’s there for free!)

Ready? Let’s go!

1) Write a few paragraphs about WHY you’re doing this.

This helps you get clear, to yourself and your stakeholders, why you’ve decided to make this decision now!

2) Rate yourself on each of the personality traits as either high, moderate, or low.

This will give you a solid picture of where you are right now. Check out Do You Have What it Takes to Become a Business Coach? to learn more.

  • Achievement
  • Dominance
  • Competitive
  • Critical
  • Willing to Defer
  • Self-Confidence
  • Critical Thinking
  • Playful/Energetic

3) Buy each of these books and read them.

Start with the first and work your way down.

  • E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber
  • Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kyosaki
  • The Ultimate Sales Machine, Chet Holmes
  • Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, Verne Harnish
  • Instant Cash Flow, Brad Sugars
  • The War of Art, Steven Pressfield
  • Guerilla Marketing 101, Jay Conrad Levinson
  • The Flip Side, Flip Flippen
  • 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni
  • E-Myth Mastery, Michael Gerber
  • The Richest Man in Babylon, George S. Clason
  • Cash Flow Quadrant, Robert Kiyosaki
  • God Wants You to Be Rich, Paul Zane Pilzer
  • Test Advertising Methods, John Caples

4) Equip your home office

At a minimum, you’ll need:

  • Computer
  • Printer
  • Great internet connection
  • Zoom (get the Pro version)

5) Form your corporate entity

  • Register for an S-corp or LLC
  • Set up a DBA
  • Establish a bank account for your business

6) Set your goals

7) Find your outsourced help

  • Find a bookkeeper
  • Call Client Acquisition Partners and discuss the possibility of outsourcing your cold calling (tell them the Coaches’ Coach sent you)
  • Find a personal or virtual assistant

8) Start marketing

9) Master sales

10) Get ready to coach your clients

  • Print out the 10 Commandments of Customer Service
  • Put them in a prominent place in your office
  • Refer to them often when you sign new clients or run into problems
  • Ask yourself how you can improve in each of the areas

Want full descriptions and explanations of everything on this list? Download our FREE ebook, How to Become a Business Coach to get the details you need!

Eric Dombach

Eric Dombach is an accomplished investor, entrepreneur, business coach, and author dedicated to leadership development, team building, and business growth. With more than two decades of expertise, Eric has enhanced the performance of 100’s privately-held companies under his guidance.
Since 2005, when he founded Coaches’ Coach, Eric has launched an average of 50 executives into business coaching careers annually and has been instrumental in the development of more than 6300 aspiring business coaches globally. His influence spans North America, Europe, and Australasia, where he has mentored executives from eight franchise systems and authored numerous industry publications, including the Amazon best-seller “The Million Dollar Business Coaching Firm.” Eric’s expertise was also recognized at the inaugural World Business and Executive Coach Summit, where he presented alongside 23 other thought leaders in the field.
Eric’s original business coaching practice, launched in 2001, swiftly expanded to seven franchises, yielding more than $1 million in annual revenue, maintaining a 23% operating margin, and achieving a remarkable 140% growth rate yearly for four consecutive years.
After instituting a unique regional go-to-market strategy and service delivery approach over 4 years, Eric sold the enterprise to his employees for $1 million, realizing an 800% return on investment.
Holding an MBA from the University of the People and a Bachelor’s in Engineering from Messiah University, Eric’s accolades include the Coaches’ Coach Certified Grand Master Business Coach and International Franchising Association’s Franchisee of the Year Award, among others.
Eric’s community involvement spans numerous church leadership positions, and he treasures his family life, being married to Deborah since 1993 with four children. When not steering his businesses, he indulges in reading, globetrotting, and jazz-fusion guitar.
Three Great Fears Every Business Coach Must Conquer

Three Great Fears Every Business Coach Must Conquer

So you want to be a business coach.

Of course you do! Business coaching is a rewarding, potentially very lucrative field that allows you to earn a great living while making a real difference in the lives of your business coaching clients (and the economy more generally!).

But if you’re like most beginning business coaches, you’re probably grappling with what I call the Three Great Fears—and they’re holding you back from building your practice as effectively and aggressively as you might otherwise do.

What are the Three Great Fears?

Service delivery: will I be able to deliver a valuable service that my clients will gladly pay me for?

Sales: will I be able to clearly articulate the value of my service in a sales meeting and establish the right expectations at the right price?

Lead generation: will I be able to consistently generate a list of people interested in my service, who want to talk to me and learn more about how I can help them?

(Sidenote: if these aren’t your fears, you’re worrying about the wrong things!)

Fortunately, there are simple and systematic ways to address each one. So let’s dive in.

Service Delivery

Having an amazing service offering is everything! Without it, and without absolute confidence in it, you’ll never have the courage to do what it takes to succeed…so you won’t.

Having an amazing service offering is everything! Without it, and without absolute confidence in it, you'll never have the courage to do what it takes to succeed...so you won't.

With an amazing service offering, it becomes easy to deliver value to clients that they will gladly pay good money for.

As business coaches, we solve three big problems that cause pain for business owners: Time, Team, and Money.

The Coaches’ Coach business coaching system is built around 21 “Silver Bullets” that are divided into each of these categories.

They enable you to help your clients address their most urgent business challenges with effective, proven strategies that work in any business. You introduce the silver bullet to your client, help them implement it, and help them recognize and quantify the impact.

As you do this week after week, you help your clients make incremental but impactful improvements in their businesses—and prove your value as their coach over and over again.

Sales

What’s the difference between a business coach who banks just $10,000 per year…versus one who does $10,000 per month?

Sales!

The single most valuable skill you will learn in business coaching is sitting down with a business owner, clearly articulating your value, and asking for money in a way that makes it a no-brainer for them.

Not coincidentally, this is the area where many coaches experience the most anxiety.

Only two things matter in sales: setting up sales meetings (a.k.a. Complimentary Coaching Sessions) and actually having the sales meetings so that you can convert them into clients at the end.

You can spend a lot of time on a lot of work that makes you feel “busy,” but ask yourself honestly: how much time in the past week have you really spent either setting up, or holding, Complimentary Coaching Sessions? If the answer isn’t, a lot, you’re going to struggle in this business.

Lead Generation

Which, of course, brings us to the third great fear—will I be able to consistently generate a list of people interested in my service, so that I can hold Complimentary Coaching Sessions, and convert those prospects into paying clients?

To be effective, you need to start with a defined target market. I usually suggest that you decide between two options: you can be a local legend (a coach who works with any kind of business owner within your geographical region) or a global guru (a coach who focuses on a single niche and uses primarily digital marketing tactics to build a global client base).

If you haven’t clearly defined your target market, it will be more difficult to attract clients. Be super clear about who you’re talking to. Then, master 2-3 of the following strategies:

  • Referrals
  • Networking
  • Social media
  • Content marketing
  • Direct mail
  • Outsourced telemarketing
  • “Bold walking” (going into local places of business to introduce yourself)
  • Strategic partnerships

Move contacts from strangers to leads to prospects to clients in a systematic way, and you’ll have an ongoing pipeline of new business.

For more fantastic strategies on building your business coaching practice, download our FREE ebook, Secrets of a Business Coaching Rock Star.