A lot of coaches never get around to building a coaching practice because they don’t feel like they are ready. Others don’t know where to begin. Of course, you can begin by coaching your friends and family. But does it really count? Building a coaching practice is much more than coaching. It’s proactively meeting people, setting up free coaching sessions, and enrolling them into coaching.

The Distinction Between Building a Coaching Practice and Just Coaching

When you actively contact people and coach them, you take control over your coaching business. Waiting for friends and family to ask for advice is not a basis for a business. Taking a passive approach to your business has an extremely limited future. It’s at best a hobby and unless you take your own business seriously, no one else will.

If you are taking action, however, you are in control of your own destiny. As you start taking actions that build a coaching practice such as running free sessions, you begin to take ownership of your business. You become the authority. Eventually these coaching sessions will become the backbone of your practice. You will have control over the growth of your business instead of being a passive recipient waiting for crumbs of bread.

What Else Can You Do To Build Your Coaching Business?

Other ways of building your coaching practice include using Facebook, LinkedIn, or other social networking sites, internet marketing, public speaking, joint venture partners, cold calls, networking events, referrals, and so on and so on.

Of course all these are great ways of building your coaching practice and some of these will bring so much business you’ll need to hire coaches to serve the clients that come to you if you are consistent over time. Until you master the skill of taking control of your coaching relationships and actively seek out clients rather than wait for people to seek out your advice, you have a hobby and not a business. Having a coaching hobby is fine, but you won’t make money and you won’t help your clients as much as you will when they know you make your living on your coaching skills.

It’s sad to say, but true. Until people somehow see your coaching practice as a business, they actually won’t see as much value in your time. It’s a bit of the old adage, you get what you pay for. Coaching family and friends for free cheapens the transaction. While I don’t charge my friends and family, they know that I have a business and that others pay me for the same advise they get for free. Somehow they

Colette Seymann
JTS Advisors Designated Accountability Coach

Technorati Tags: Building a Coaching Practice, Life Coaching Business

Delivering content-rich public presentations is one of the best ways of building a coaching practice. But you have to do it right.

Set the Stage for Your “Close” at Your “Opening”

Don’t make your presentation a sales pitch, but don’t wait until the end to let your audience know that you have services that you would like them to buy. If you do, it often comes across as deception.

Offer a transcript of your presentation. Offer to send them your email newsletter. Offer free individual follow up phone coaching to apply your material to their individual situations. Offer them an irresistible special rate for your coaching. But don’t sell!

Give – Give – Give and Give Some More!

Your audience will measure your potential as a coach by the quality of information that you deliver in your free presentations. Don’t sell, just give! Show them how great you are by delivering valuable content.

If a member of your audience says that they were dragged there by a friend and were prepared to walk out if you delivered a sales pitch. And that they were amazed by the value you delivered for free.

Well, then you are on the right track!

Building a Coaching Practice by Following Up and Following Through

If you are serious about building a coaching practice it all comes down to following up and following through!

Send them your transcript. Put them on your monthly email newsletter – which better be full of valuable content. Give them great free sessions. Make them an irresistible offer for follow-on coaching. Deliver killer coaching. And if you do all this, you will have earned the right to ask them to refer their friends and colleagues to you. If they do, you are really on your way to building a coaching practice!

Special Bonus – Learn 3 simple ways to become a life coach with the “30-Days to Become a Coach” video toolkit when you fill in the form at the top right and click the “Watch The Videos Now” button. You’ll learn how to change your client’s life in 45 minutes.

Dave Iuppa
JTS Advisors Strategy and Accountability Coach

Technorati Tags: Building a Coaching Practice, Life Coaching Business

Unfortunately for most life coaches, building a coaching practice requires more than coaching skills. For most of us, our coaching “hat” fits well and easily. But it is very different from our business “hat” which may not fit so well. While the helping and giving side of being a coach is what makes us who we are, it also makes turning our coaching into a successful business something of a challenge. Networking helps coaches to bridge the gap when building a coaching practice.

Networking uses attributes that coaches already have

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There are many approaches to building a coaching practice. Networking, however, is a particularly congruent skill for coaches who want to build their businesses. Why? Because networking is about relationships and so is coaching. Dr. Ivan Misner, the father of modern networking, says that networking is “more about farming than hunting.” Translation: networking isn’t just about going in for a quick exchange of business cards. His networking model involves building relationships. Sure, you might go to a networking meeting and find someone who is interested in a free session with you. But if you take the time to get to know people in the group and let them get to know you, you might end up with several clients or even better, an affiliate partner–someone far more helpful than a single client in terms of building a coaching practice.

Three key networking techniques for building a coaching practice

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1) If you’ve studied marketing at all you probably know that you need a 30 second “elevator pitch” for your networking. What you might not know is that you really only have about 7 seconds to catch someone’s attention–by then you’ve either caught their interest or not. So when you’re building a coaching practice it’s critical that you script an elevator pitch that makes people want to know more about you and what you do.

2) Remember that networking is about relationships and relationships are critical to building a coaching practice. When you meet someone, ask questions about them. Find out who they are and what they need. Build the conversation about them first, and see if what you are offering is a good fit for them before you offer it.

3) Focus on getting other people’s information rather than giving away your own. Most business cards go straight into the circular file after a meeting, but if someone gives you their card, they are giving you permission to contact them. Contact them by phone no more than 48 hours after you meet them if building a coaching practice includes giving complimentary sessions. And add them to your mailing list.

Dorine G Kramer
JTS Advisors Strategy and Accountability Coach

Technorati Tags: Building a Coaching Practice, Life Coaching Business

In your life coaching business, focus is necessary (especially early on) when building a coaching practice.  Focus is required to make money when building a coaching practice.  Here’s an example to illustrate the value of focus in your life coaching business.  You can take a flashlight and point it right at your eyes and it would irritate you a bit.  No big deal.  But if you took the energy of a flashlight and concentrated it into a laser, that laser can cut steel.  Of course, you’d never point a laser into your eyes because you might go blind.

When Building A Coaching Practice (Life Coaching Business) DON’T Focus On What’s NOT Working

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Let’s say you don’t have the amount of clients you want in your life coaching business.  What a lot of coaches do (when building a coaching practice) is panic.  They panic because they are worried about where the money is going to come from to pay their bills.  Coaches only earn money when they have paying clients.  If they don’t have enough clients, they tend to focus on what is NOT working.  It’s the leads, it’s the economy, I must not have what it takes to be a coach, etc.

When Building A Coaching Practice (Life Coaching Business) You Get What You Focus On

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If you focus on what’s not working when you build a coaching practice, you get more of what’s not working.  It’s not going to move your life coaching business forward.  It’s not going to improve your situation.  If you need more leads, then focus on what you can do to generate more leads.  If you need a better script for your free session, focus on what you can do to improve it.  If you’re not using a script for your free session, then find one.  Find out what the top coaches in your field are doing.  Then do what they do, and you will produce similar results.  If you focus on what you can do to create money in your life coaching business, then you will get what you focus on.

Kris Thompson

JTS Advisors Strategy Coach

Technorati Tags: Building a Coaching Practice, Life Coaching Business

Building a coaching practice is a lot like buying real estate with no money down.  If it’s wrong, you’ll be disappointed and it will look like it’s impossible.  Most people either fail to get the loan, or they succeed and go bankrupt.  So what can you do about building your life coaching business?  Is building a coaching practice through public speaking a viable option?  Just like most people in our society date before they get married, you need to let people get to know you before you get life coaching business.

If You’re Interesting in Building a Coaching Practice Through Public Speaking Do NOT Coach From the Front of the Room

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The biggest mistake coaches make when building a coaching practice through public speaking is offering coaching from the front of the room.  It will minimize the life coaching business you will get because it’s the most expensive option you have.  Even the big gurus don’t do it.  How do they do it then?

Unless You Are Speaking in Front of Paying Clients Who Have Purchased Your Products, You’ll Have to Do More to Increase Your Life Coaching Business

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If your ultimate outcome is to get life coaching business, you’re going to need to add a few steps before you make that offer.  For example, a certain guru holds seminars with thousands of people attending.  That’s not a big deal for most people to give up a weekend of their time, and the cost is fixed.  Perhaps after they attend the seminar people buy some of his products, audios or videos.  They may even enroll in another seminar.  That’s a lot of time and effort that this guru invests in people even before people consider coaching.  If building a coaching practice this way was hard for him, it’s going to be impossible for you.  Unless you’re speaking in a group of paying clients, who have already been buying your products

Building a Coaching Practice Becomes Easier and More Enjoyable When You Follow These Steps

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Before you start thinking that building a coaching practice from the front of the room is a waste of time, there are some things you can do to get life coaching business even before you become a master.  For example, you can offer a free coaching session and pass out lead cards to gather contact information.  Another way to get life coaching business is to offer a drawing for a free book, product, or month of coaching.  Tell your audience that if they want to be in the running, pop their business card in your basket.  And as an aside, let them know that if they want a complementary coaching session with you, they can just write ‘yes’ on the back of their card.

That’s the simplest way to get people to be interested in coaching and in build a life coaching business.  Once you get them alone you can add a ton of value to them through your coaching, and yet you still have the validation because you were a speaker.  Building a coaching practice this way may seem like more work, but you will have more success and be able to enjoy the process as well.

Colette Seymann

JTS Advisors Designated Accountability Coach

Technorati Tags: Building a Coaching Practice, Life Coaching Business