I’ve just been asked about how someone should go about setting up a life coaching business. This is a fairly regular enquiry that I receive from people who visit my website, so I thought I would share my general advice on the blog.
Although the question that I was asked today was explicitly about a life coaching business, the answer is the same whether you want to be a business coach, executive coach, career coach or life coach.
There are two distinct strands of activity that you need to undertake before you can successfully run your own coaching business.
The first is the technical side – how to become a coach. The second is to run your own business. Ignore either one of these strands of activity at your peril!
One of the challenges that you will face as a life coach is how to differentiate yourself from all the other life coaches. Go to any networking event, and probably be about 30% of the room who are coaches… There are two ways of doing this – be a credentialed coach with an internationally recognised coaching organisation such as the ICF, and focus on a niche. When I talk about a niche, I mean focusing on one type of person and how you will meet your needs. For example, I help professional advisors who want to achieve better business results for less effort. (Such as people interested in setting up a coaching business! as well as lawyers, accountants etc) Perhaps you may want to work with women who considering going back to work after having a baby…
I would suggest that you look at the ICF’s website , for good coaching training programmes, which are accredited by the ICF. I can recommend Results Coaching Systems, CTI and coach development. Make sure you choose a course which will satisfy the academic requirements to meet the ACC standard. Also, if you’ve not got practical business experience, do look for one that will help you start and grow your coaching business.
On the second strand of activity, building a coaching business, I can recommend reading Hannah McNamara’s book Niche marketing for coaches. As well as the marketing side of running a business, you will need to get to grips with all the basics of running a business, e.g. book-keeping. I would suggest that you tap into your local business link workshops, which are free for start-up business owners, for this type of thing.
There is lots of advice for coaches who are new to business ownership on this blog – take a look at the business efficiency category.
It is recommended that if you are thinking about starting to train as a coach, and build a coaching practice, that you have coaching yourself. Have you thought about this yet? And factored the cost into your business plan? A good coach such as myself, or someone from my company, will be a good investment for the future, and help you set up your coaching practice efficiently and effectively. We are currently working with two new coaches, helping them build up their own coaching practices… and take a look at a recent testimonial from a coach, Catrin Mills, that we have recently helped successfully set up her own coaching practice and gain her first book deal:
“Heather is a highly intuitive and effective coach. She is easy to talk to but quickly gets to the heart of the issue. I worked with Heather when she supported me in setting up my own coaching business.In just one month, Heather’s suggestions led to two significant projects worth four times what I had paid in coaching fees. I continued to get a great business return on my investment, not to mention feeling supported, focused, confident, energised, and extremely motivated after every conversation.Heather gives her all to her clients and if you are starting out in business, she is a worthwhile, or I would even say essential, person to have on your team.”
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