Making decisions in your coaching business can be a scary prospect. The commitment and the perceived finality of it can be a little intimidating. However, making decisions should not be seen as final judgement calls. Rather, you should be open to making new decisions regularly to help your coaching practice continue to scale and grow.
The average adult can make up to 35,000 unconscious decisions per day. That’s a lot of potential decisions racing through your mind in just 24 hours! Some of these decisions will come naturally, and you won’t have to think twice about them. Others will require more thought and strategic planning before you can reach a final decision.
When it comes to your coaching business, there are five key decisions you must make and continue to review to help grow your coaching practice. Each of these decisions is important to help you develop your business, keep you on track, attract new clients and help them achieve their desired results.
In episode 5 of The Mindset Coach podcast, I take you through the five key business decisions I believe you need to make in your coaching business. Don’t worry, none of these decisions will be carved in stone. You can continue to revise and adjust your decisions as your coaching business grows and evolves.
You can listen to the episode of the podcast below, or keep reading …
1. Who do you serve?
This business decision is one that you will likely make more than once. It will be refined, reviewed, refined again, changed, and refined some more!
To help you clarify who you serve, start thinking about niching. The topic of niching requires its own podcast episode and blog post (watch this space) but for now, we’ll consider it at a high level by thinking about who it is that you want to serve.
There is a lot of resistance to niching in the coaching industry, and I get it. You want to help everyone. You’ve got so many skills and so much knowledge to share that narrowing your ideal client base down seems close to impossible. However, believe me when I say that in trying to help everyone, you’re helping no one.
When you’re considering your niche and how to define it, you need to be very clear with yourself and your clients about who you serve. Not only that, but you’ve also got to define how you help them achieve their goals, how you can help them solve their problems and create the life and business that they desire.
Choosing a niche can seem counterintuitive. Going smaller to grow bigger just makes no sense to some people. However, niching down helps you to get really specific about who you serve as a coach. Plus, it brings you closer to gaining a reputation as an expert in your coaching niche.
Niching helps you to refine your messaging too. When done correctly, your messaging will speak to your ideal clients in a way that no other coach has been able to in the past. When the right client sees or hears your message, they will feel like you’re directly speaking to them.
Consider the phrase:
“I help nutritionists get more leads in their business.”
That is a very generic phrase. It’s important to remember that our clients are looking to solve a problem and they want to know HOW you can help them solve it. You need to get specific and stay away from general messaging tactics that don’t necessarily speak to anyone.
Let’s review the message above and make it more targeted:
“I help nutritionists get more leads in their business through Facebook ads.”
Or…
“I help nutritionists get leads in their business by helping them design programs and packages that meet their client’s specific needs.”
Do you see the difference?
Niching is all about making it clear to your potential clients who you work with and how you’re going to help them. Sitting down and taking the time to consider your niche statement is so important. For now, start to consider ways to refine your messaging to reflect your niche while ensuring it still lights you up from within.
2. What are you going to serve?
The next key business decision you need to think about is what you are going to serve. By that I mean, what is the outcome you help clients achieve?
As with niching, you need to get specific when making this decision because people are looking for solutions to their specific problems. When you get a new client, they are investing in the outcome you’ll help them achieve. So, think about the transformation you help clients go through. Where are you taking your clients from (present state)? And where you are taking them to (desired state)?
Being able to articulate this in a very specific way and focusing on the outcomes you’re offering your clients is key.
Your outcome could be:
“I help abc [insert niche] get to $10k per month.”
It’s all about that goal. How do they know they’ve reached their desired outcome? Well, they’ve made $10k in a month.
Consider whether your outcomes are quantitative or qualitative and determine how they can each be measured. Make it very clear to your potential clients about what you can help them achieve as their coach.
3. How are you going to serve?
It’s time to determine how you’re going to deliver your service and help your clients reach their desired outcome.
Please don’t think of time-based outcomes such as the 12-week coaching package or the 12-month coaching package. The reason why is because packages like this refer to a container of time, not outcomes. The time is how long, the package is what happens within that time.
Think about how you will consistently and reliably help your clients get from where they are now to where they want to be. There should be a focus on the solution in your “how”. Make sure you can move your client from the problem to the solution and then to the outcome.
When thinking about how you are going to serve, consider how much time it will take to help your client achieve their desired outcome or goal. Then, plan how you are going to work within that timeframe and be consistently successful.
Clients come to you because they don’t know what to do and they don’t understand how to move away from their problem. It’s your role as their coach to try and understand their past, habits, beliefs, values and behaviours and how they all interact with each other to find the correct path for your client.
You need to sit down and define a package that’s important to you and delivers the outcomes your client is seeking. Consider all of the steps needed to guide your client through and emerge on the other side.
4. When to serve?
One of the biggest business decisions you will make in your coaching practice is when you are going to serve. When to serve is a little more complex, and I believe there are two sides to this business decision. You have your clients to consider, of course, but you also need to remember your own vision for the future of your coaching practice.
When thinking about when to serve, you need to make decisions around when you are going to work in your business. And how does your business work for, and around, you?
Consider the timing of these things carefully and, when doing so, remember to reflect on things that could influence when you will be able to serve your clients. A few examples to consider include:
- When are you a parent?
- Do you want the school holidays off?
- Do you only want to work six months of the year?
- Do you only want to work evenings?
These visions need to be front and centre of your mind when you’re crafting your services, your packages, and defining your niche.
You also must consider your clients and their visions. What are the times your clients are most likely to recognise that they need your help? Consider WHEN it makes sense for you to be running certain packages in your coaching practice.
Let’s take a financial coach as an example. You might find the three months after the end of the financial year to be the best time for a program coaching your clients on preparing for the year ahead. You could then follow that up with something similar in the three months leading up to the end of the financial year for preparing yourself for tax time.
Working to your client’s perceived deadlines/timeframes will help you determine your when.
5. What is your positioning in the marketplace?
Some consider money, finances, and pricing to be taboos. Others won’t talk about theirs in public. But when it comes to making the key decisions in your coaching practice, these all have to be considered.
So, what end of the market do you want to be in?
The easily accessible, financially affordable end of the marketplace or the luxury end?
The reality of the marketplace is that there are people out there who will pay $50 for a course and there are people who will pay $50,000 for a course! There are also all of the people in between to think about.
When considering the marketplace, where do you want to position yourself and your coaching business?
You need to consider balancing the volume of clients to the cost per client. Are you looking at high volume, low cost, or low volume and high cost?
As you begin to make this decision, remember to think of the rationale behind that decision and whether it makes sense for you and your clients.
Having the answers to each of the first four questions and keeping them in mind will help you determine your positioning in the marketplace and that, in turn, will help you to bring abundance and financial security into your own business.
Remember this:
We are coaches. We are in business. We love helping people. Coaching is our calling.
But…
We still need to generate revenue in our coaching practices!
Well, there you have it. The five key business decisions I believe you must make in your coaching practice to ensure you have direction, clarity, and the roadmap to help you continue to grow your coaching business.
Whether you’re a new coach, an aspiring coach or you already have an established coaching practice, I encourage you to sit down and answer each of these questions.
If you want some more help and guidance when it comes to making important decisions in your coaching business, check out all the great resources we have available! I’m always adding new resources to help you out, so make sure you check in regularly!