Article: Coaches, it is time to rewrite your business development story with ease and joy!
by guest author Karen Cappello
Working on establishing and growing your coaching business can at times can feel like a lot of hard work and hustle. Perhaps you are watching the training calls. You’re reading success stories. Despite all of your efforts, you’re still not there. So what's holding you back?
Below are some of the stories that you might be telling yourself. Do any of these sound familar?
#1: You have little or no paid client experience in coaching.
You may not have experience in coaching, but you have years and years of experience as a leader in business. You have experience working with others. You have experience advising everyone around you. This is more than enough to start helping others through their challenges. You’ve been doing a version of coaching for years.
# 2: You’re not ready yet.
You don’t have a website yet. You don’t have a professional headshot yet. You don’t know how to charge for your coaching yet. Your systems and processes aren’t perfectly in place yet.
Chances are you have enough resources to begin. Most of us don’t have everything perfect. Aim for progress not perfection.
# 3: You need to make money before you invest in your business.
This is not exactly how it works. Making money requires an investment. There are start-up costs that need to be paid in any business. Although, the good news is that a coaching business requires a lot less of an investment than a brick and mortar one.
So don’t believe you have to start out with sweat equity only! Make some smart investments and you will see faster returns.
# 4: This is not the right time to go all-in.
Here’s the truth: the situation will never be exactly right. Life is never going to stop just so you can have more time. The longer you wait to get started, the harder it can be. Just start and keep making progress from wherever you are.
# 5: I tried this strategy, and it didn’t work.
Do you know how many times a toddler falls before he can walk? The first couple of times you do anything, are you a pro? Are you an expert right away? No. It takes 10,000 hours or more to become an expert. If your first couple of posts don’t get engagement or someone ghosts you on a discovery call, keep going? It means that you’re just getting started and learning the ropes. Keep going!
# 6: I need to try doing it on my own first before I hire a coach.
I hear this story a lot. I should try it on my own first. Why? As a coach, I know that you have a growth mindset, not a fixed one. If someone is offering you help, why not look into it? Imagine you are walking through the desert and thirsty… and someone offers you a cool drink of water. Would you say “No thanks, I’m going to save that water for when I REALLY need it”?
# 7: I’m not good at ____ (i.e. tech, sales, writing).
Is it really that you’re not good at it or that you’ve never learned how to do it? When I first started, I wasn’t good at marketing. I could do some things but not to the level I do now. I also didn’t know anything about websites, online learning, discovery calls... Zoom didn’t even exist when I started coaching.
It’s ok that you don’t know how to do something, but not knowing how to do something doesn’t mean you can’t learn enough to start.
# 8: I don’t know if I can do it.
Have you already accomplished something hard that you weren’t sure you could do? Of course, you have! Use that experience as your anchor. If you can do that, then you can build a successful business. It won’t happen overnight, but I promise, if you become committed to the outcome, you’ll achieve it.
Maybe you believe some of these stories to be true for you. Every coach who’s made it had something to overcome. What gets them over the story and into action is trusting the process and leaning into the support that is available to them.
Which of these stories do you need to rewrite and what action will you take to do that?
About the author
Karen Cappello, MCC is a master coach who has spent decades helping coaches develop and grow their businesses. Join us on the 24th of January as Karen guides us on how we can leverage all that we already have to attract more clients. Karen believes that growing your coaching business can be done with ease, joy and all skills you are so familiar with!
Limited spaces remaining, click on the link below to book!
