You don’t have to be a graduated, certified coach to officially hang up your shingle and start your coaching business. In fact we advise our coaching students to start coaching and earning revenue as soon as they can. With so many affordable online tools available to business owners these days your business can change and develop as you do. Your business, your logo, your website of today don/t have to be the same as tomorrow.
To help you start experimenting and exploring who you are as a coach we have put together this nifty list of our favourite tools and resources.
Download Coaching Tool List
Things You can Do While You Develop and Refine Your Business
Businesses are not built over night. They are not the result of one intense strategic planning session. They take time, experimentation, reflection, testing and constant re-imagining. They grow and change as you do. It is a process we encourage our coaching students to star as soon as they enrol, and a process they continue with while building their coaching skills and knowledge.
However – this doesnt mean you can’t GET STARTED. In this post we summarise the things you can do right now to get yourself up and running. And remember – the idea here is to just get something up. Don’t be too significant, or worry too much about whether it is “right” The best way to work that out is to do it, and get it out there. Get real clients, start coaching and take it from there.
And if you want some help along the way, join our Business Express course and come to a weekly bLab to get hands on advice and support.
Step 1 Develop Your Coaching Business Identity
- Choose a business name and you may need to register your business name in your local country. When choosing a business name check that the website name is available. If you are not sure what to call your business you can use your name eg "Jane Smith Coaching".
- Buy your domain name and email address. You don't need to have your whole website up at this stage, you can just reserve or park your website.
- Get a logo. You don't have to have a logo to start your coaching business but at the very least you should choose a font and colour for your business name and use it consistently in all your communication documents. You can get logos made for as little as $5 on www.fiverr.com
- Get a business card. Business cards can cost as little as $25 for a pack of cards. You don't need to wait to have your website up to print business cards. When your website is up you can reprint new cards. If you are coaching virtually you can set up an online business card instead of a physical one using a program such as www.wisestamp.com/.
- Get a professional profile photo of yourself which you will end up using everywhere, on your linkedin profile, on your website, on facebook and if you like on your business card. It's a worthwhile investment.
Step 2 Develop Your Coach Starter Pack
Your Coach Starter Pack includes all the backend things you need to have a coaching business. These include setting up a business email address
- About Me
- Welcome letter
- Client Information Sheet
- What is Coaching definition
- Coaching Agreement (Terms)
- Pre Session Question
- Coaching Tools eg Wheel of Life, Values Exercise, Goal Setting
- Coaching Contract setting out fees, session times, duration of the contract
Step 3 Set-up Your Business Systems
Business systems are all the things you need to be able to communicate with leads and clients from start to finish. Your business systems would include:
- A business email address
- Meeting time planner to schedule calls all over the world
- Appointment booking system (you may simply use your calendar.
- Your phone, buy skype credits or a phone card to call internationally
- A way to accept payments such as a PayPal Business Account
- A way to create and send invoices and track expenses and income eg an accounting system
- A contact management system to track leads and clients and record coaching sessions
Step 4 Create Your Online Presence
Most coaches have a website which includes a blog. You can do it yourself or get a professional to make it for you. Regardless of how you go about creating the website, one thing that you and you alone can do is write the content of your site. Think about your target audience, what problem you are solving and why you are the best person to help solve that problem.
Update your linkedin profile with the following:
- a professional profile image
- a link to your new website
- your coach training education & credentials
- endorsements & testimonials from clients (even clients you coached as part of your coach training)
- update your professional description to say what you are now doing ie coaching
Step 5 Tell The World
You are now ready to tell the world about your coaching practice.
- Start by telling friends and family, create a launch email and send it out to your network asking them to refer anyone that they think would benefit from your services
- Share your website in all your social media accounts
- Start blogging and sharing your articles
- Go to networking events
- Get out there and meet people
So there you go, getting your coaching business up in 5 main steps. At International Coach Academy we help you and support you through this process in the Business Express Course which includes “how to” videos, checklists and live weekly Q&A calls. Click here to find out more…