In this post, I want to share my recommendations for resources that can help you get your coaching business started.
Infrastructure
When coaching our clients, we have multiple ways we could go about it.
I saw a discussion on Facebook where one coach asked the other coaches how they ran their enrollment conversations — phone or video conferencing. The answers were about half and half with video conferencing taking a slight lead.
The reasons were incredibly varied — from “I can get in touch with my intuition more if I just listen” to “I run them through a visual process so I need to share my screen.”
It should be obvious that not all coaches are the same. And thus, the infrastructure they need will be different.
Some coaches like me need some robust CRMs and eCommerce apps. While other coaches can get away with a $10 per month scheduling app and a phone.
So take a look at what kind of coaching you want to do in the immediate future and think about the infrastructure you need to coach your clients.
See the box below for my recommendations...
My bare minimum recommendations:
If you're just getting started in coaching and need to keep your expenses to a minimum, these are my recommendations.
Acuity Scheduling is a scheduling app that not only allows your clients and potential clients to setup appointments with you, it also allows you to set up coaching packages and charge for them. You can hook it to Stripe, Square, and Paypal so no need for a shopping cart of any kind. Plus, it allows you to send personalized email reminders so you can get your clients and potential clients excited for you session.
Stripe is a payment processor that allows you to collect credit card payments. It's free. I highly recommend you take payment info yourself as soon as your potential client has said yes to your coaching.
Skype allows you to make calls in two ways. First, you can make Skype-to-Skype calls where each person has a Skype ID and has the Skype app open on their computer, tablet, or cell phone. Second, you can also make Skype-to-phone calls where you are using Skype to call the other person's phone. The reason you would do this is because you can use a third party app to record those calls. Offering recordings to clients and potential clients adds more value to your coaching and it allows you to review the calls so you can get better.
eCamm Call Recorder is a third-party app that works with Skype so you can record your Skype calls. You can record both audio and video calls.
Next Level Recommendation
For those of you who like to use video conferencing, I highly recommend Zoom. They have a free version that will work for most coaches doing just one-to-one sessions. It's easy to use and it doesn't require your clients to have a separate app loaded on their computer. It allows you to record sessions if you want, which I highly recommend as an added bonus for clients.
People
While you most likely don’t need a huge team to run your coaching business, a few contractors can come in handy. Depending on your marketing approach, you may need help finding speaking gigs, posting social media messages, or (like me) running some FB Ads to marketing funnels.
What is on your plate right now that you don’t enjoy and would really love to get rid of? Try going to something like Fiverr.com and see if you can find someone who will do it for you inexpensively.
For me, anytime I have to do mundane, detail work that requires me to copy paste copy paste, and I start getting that “I’d rather poke my eyes out feeling,” that’s my cue to head over to Fiverr to see who is available.
Ideally, we want someone who can take the work off our hands permanently, but we have to start somewhere. Half the battle is just getting in the practice of delegating work.
And remember, you’re going for a six figure business. And if you’ve seen some of my videos, you know that I recommend you think about your hourly "rate" at $100 or more.
One, that’s the minimum you should be charging clients to be a six figure coach.
Two, it’s incredibly helpful to think of your tasks in this way. Ask yourself, “Is this task something that someone making $100 per hour or more should be doing?” Could I pay someone a lot less to do this for me?
Start thinking in those terms. You may not be able to hire someone just yet, but you can start listing out the tasks that you want off your plate and putting together checklists and instructions for delegating those tasks as soon as you can afford it.
My recommendations to get started:
If you're just getting started in coaching and want to try your hand at delegating, whether it's some social media graphics, admin tasks, or other tasks you'd rather not do, these are just a couple of my recommendations.
Fiverr is really great at trying your hand at delegating with minimal expense. For just $5-20 per task, you can see how well your instructions were followed. Not so great? No problem, you can usually get revisions until you're satisfied. You'll get work you're happy with and practice writing out instructions to someone else.
Upwork is a step above Fiverr in both price and level of project. You can test the waters with a $15 per hour admin project or go all the way up to $150 per hour and beyond for web and tech help.
Training
The final resource is training. This is really about increasing our knowledge and skills in the area of coaching in general and also in our particular transformation.
I’m a big believer in always improving in our areas of expertise. We can always get better. And this getting better and better is what leads to an increase in impact and revenue.
Do you have any gaps in the area of transformation you provide or want to provide? Or is there an area that just needs a bit of tweaking or improvement?
And don’t forget the foundational areas of coaching. Could you get better at building rapport and trust? How about listening? Or staying in curiosity? How are you with silence? Not always an easy one, but master this and your coaching becomes ten times more powerful.
My recommendations:
Now, I know it's a little weird to recommend my own stuff, but I did create my programs to help new and struggling coaches grow their businesses to six figures.
The Coaching Genius Course was developed to take coaches through the 5 building blocks of the Coaching Genius System so they stop trying to do ALL. THE. THINGS. and start focusing on the most important things. You only need 1 transformation, 1 avatar, 1 coaching methodology, 1 marketing approach, and 1 enrollment convo to have a six-figure business.
The Coaches Accelerator is my signature 1-1 coaching / course hybrid. It's a step-by-step program that walks you through every single piece of what you need to build a six-figure business while getting my personal support every step of the way.
Now you may be thinking, but how am I going to find the time to pick the right infrastructure, find the right people, or get training in even more areas. I’m busy already.
I get it. Building a coaching practice can take a lot of work. And yet, it’s so important that we find the time to do these things. And in fact, doing these things will actually increase our productivity in the long-term.
The right infrastructure, set up in the right way for our business, will feel seamless. And will save us so much time.
The right people, will allow us to focus on our strengths and spend less time doing things that aren’t in our genius zone and shouldn’t be done by us.
The right training, knowledge, and skill sets allow us to be better at what we do. Which often leads to more referrals and less time marketing.
I hope you found this helpful.
With love & joy,
P.S. Is there someone in your life who could benefit from reading this post? Why not share this with them?
