If you feel like you’re working all the time on your life coaching career, yet you still aren’t bringing in new life coaching business at the rate you would like to see, you’re not alone. Many coaches feel the same way. They’ve sacrificed years of their life, only to find that the life coaching career of their dreams seems just out of reach. The reason for this is that most coaches are not running their life coaching businesses like a real business.

Why Are YOU in the Life Coaching Business?

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Some coaches are in the life coaching business because they love learning new things. They sign up for the all the seminars they can afford and read every book they can get their hands on. Then they wait for their life coaching career to take off, but it doesn’t. Unfortunately, there are many great coaches out there who never make money at what they could be the best in the world at doing, simply because they don’t market themselves.

Your Life Coach Career Isn’t Just About Your Clients

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Other coaches are in the life coaching business because they want to make a difference in the world, at all costs. They give away their products and services to people who can’t afford them, hoping these clients will have a “rags to riches” transformation. They hope these clients will give them great testimonials so their life coaching career will be propelled to the next level. Unfortunately, most people who don’t pay for coaching are not really fully enrolled. They have nothing to loose but a little time, and rarely take coaching seriously enough to get optimal results. If you can get your clients who don’t pay to get great results, you have a lot of skills and really should be charging people.

Your Life Coaching Business Doesn’t Have to be Perfect to Be Successful

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Another type of coach is the person who wants to get everything to look just right before he starts his life coaching career. The web page, the business cards, the materials; everything needs to be just right. Unfortunately, most clients don’t buy based on any of your visual aides. They enroll because they perceive you to be the only way to get what they want in terms of what matters most to them, not because you have an aesthetically pleasing life coaching business.

It’s Time to Get Serious About Your Life Coach Career

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If you are serious about your life coaching career, you need to start treating your life coaching business like a real business. That means spending at least 10 hours a week in activity that will result in new business. Some examples are working on joint ventures, new products, and finding new clients. Coaching clients, learning new materials and checking your emails are not revenue generating activity. Coaching clients is actually your reward for doing the work. Like most small businesses, lead generation is the key. Whether you plan on getting new clients through public speaking or internet marketing, you need to create a plan and carry it out.

Colette Seymann
JTS Advisors Bi-Designated Strategy and Accountability Coach

Technorati Tags: Life Coaching Business, Life Coaching Career

Mastermind groups are a waste of time in growing your life coaching business?  Sound sacrilegious?  Sure, but they are one of the most common pitfalls people fall into at one point or another during their life coaching career.  Here’s why.  A bunch of coaches sit around, usually on the phone, for an hour or so every week and talk about their life coaching businesses.  They support each other in their life coaching career goals.  And over the course of the year it amounts to over 40 hours of time!

That’s a week of full time work that you could have been using to develop your life coaching business or work toward taking your life coaching career to the next level.  But you may be thinking, mastermind groups talk about how to do that.

Mastermind Groups Can Only Affect Your Life Coaching Business if You Take Action

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There are two reasons why mastermind mind groups won’t help you with your life coaching career or your life coaching business.  The first is that most don’t show up.  Even if they do, they show up passively.  As in ready to take in information, speak their opinion if they feel like it, or they don’t take action after the call.  They expect benefits just by being on a mastermind group.

To Make Use of Mastermind Groups in Your Life Coaching Career You Must be Held Accountable

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The second reason why most people’s don’t see benefits in their life coaching career or life coaching business from mastermind groups is that everyone shows up trying to be supportive.  Which is fine to a point.  But where is the accountability if no one is ready to ask the tough questions?  Is everyone else being ‘polite’ by letting others slide so that they will have the same grace?

If you really want to take your life coaching business to the next level, avoid these common pitfalls.  If you’re already a part of a mastermind group and see this happening, don’t look for a new group.  Step up and become a leader.  Take a stand for the people in your mastermind to make something happen.  It’s only by expanding your comfort zone that there is a chance to take your life coaching career to the next level.

Colette Seymann

JTS Advisors Designated Accountability Coach

Technorati Tags: Life Coaching Business, Life Coaching Career

Are you struggling to find a name for your life coaching business?  Or perhaps you are looking for a new domain name to take your life coaching career to the next level?  Shakespeare was wrong when he wrote, “What’s in a name?  That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”  A great name could mean the difference of hundreds of thousands of dollars to your life coaching business.  With such importance, it’s no surprise that a lot of coaches spend a good part of their life coaching career trying to find the perfect name.

Your Life Coaching Business Name Must Entice Potential Customers

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What’s the most important thing your life coaching business name needs?  The name must portray the benefit of your product of service to your customer.  If you do only this, you’ve hit a home run in your life coaching career.   The benefit will be the answer to your customers’ greatest fears, hopes, and aspirations.  It will be the way to avoid their greatest fears, and the way to achieve their greatest desires.

A Catchy Name Makes a Difference to Your Life Coaching Career

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If you can add alliteration or rhyme to the name and make it catchy; it’s icing on the life coaching business cake.  It makes your business more memorable, and can be a great boost for your life coaching career as far as name recognition.  “Double Your Dating.com” is a great example.  It has the exact benefit in the title.  At JTS Advisors, we created the “Master Coach Council.”  The benefit is that most coaches are more enamored with becoming good coaches than making money.  There is also alliteration with the “C’s.”

Most Importantly Make Sure the Name of Your Life Coaching Business Describes the Service You Provide

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Is your life coaching business in danger of being one of the 90% that will fail during the first year?  The best way to ensure the longevity of your life coaching career is to make your business and business name all about how you are going to provide value for your client.  When you get your own ego involved, in any form, it stops being about your customer.

So while a name is important to your life coaching business, make sure that most of your time is spend doing what you set out to do when you first started your life coaching career.  To make a difference for others.

Colette Seymann

JTS Advisors Designated Accountability Coach

Technorati Tags: Life Coaching Business, Life Coaching Career

What’s the Difference Between Your Life Coaching Career and Your Life Coaching Business, and How Does Education and Marketing Fit Into Your Business?

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What it takes to be successful in your life coaching business is not necessarily what it takes to have a successful life coaching career. Unfortunately, there are some great coaches who fail in their life coaching business, and there are some very successful businesses that run without great coaches. Often, what it takes to be successful in your life coaching career will keep you from being successful in your life coaching business.

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What it takes to be successful in your life coaching business is not necessarily what it takes to have a successful life coaching career. Unfortunately, there are some great coaches who fail in their life coaching business, and there are some very successful businesses that run without great coaches. Often, what it takes to be successful in your life coaching career will keep you from being successful in your life coaching business.

The Importance of Education for Your Life Coaching Career

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Most people think that to have a great life coaching career they need great skills. Education is important, growth is necessary to survive, and seminars can rejuvenate your life coaching career in the same way that a weekend at the spa can rejuvenate your body and soul. But, unfortunately, as far as your life coaching business concerned, all these educational experiences are considered extra-curricular activities. Quite the opposite of the college experience, when taking classes and studying was the key focus, in your life coaching career running your business takes precident. Be wary of becoming the career student instead of the career coach.

Marketing is Key to a Successful Life Coaching Business

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If education takes the back seat in your life coaching business, what sort of activities should you do you help you have a great life coaching career? The first is marketing. This is really about generating leads via internet marketing, networking, flyers, and joint ventures. For every hour you spend on coaching or creating products, you need to spend four hours on marketing, and then two additional hours on converting leads. This includes free sessions or speaking engagements with the intent to make a sale. For every hour you coach, you need to spend six hours on your life coaching business!

So when it seems that there is a power struggle between what will advance your life coaching business and what will give you fulfillment in your life coaching career, don’t forget: It’s your life coaching business that is the vehicle for your life coaching career. If you put the cart before the horse, you run the risk of loosing what you set out to do in the first place. Among which was hopefully to make a difference in the world.

Colette Seymann

JTS Advisors Designated Accountability Coach

Technorati Tags: Life Coaching Business, Life Coaching Career

When you’re supposedly living on the edge and expanding your comfort zones, how do you know when you’re really giving 100% to your life coaching business and your life coaching career? There are three ways to gage your life coaching business and your life coaching career; comparing your results with past results, immediate reflection of performance, and deciding ahead of time the results needed to say you are working at 100%.

Are You Giving 100% to You Life Coaching Business? Gage Your Current Results Against Past Victories

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The first way to gage your life coaching business or your life coaching career is to compare your results with those you have received in the past. For example, last month you enrolled 5 new clients and this month you enrolled another 5. But what if during the previous months you enrolled 7? Does this really indicate how much effort you’re putting into your life coaching business? Are there other factors we haven’t looked at? Were there some longer term marketing projects that won’t pay off for a few months?

Build Your Life Coaching Career Through Introspection

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Another way to gage your life coaching career is through immediate reflection of your performance. Retrospection is a great way to assess which skills are good, which are great, and which need to be improved right away. This is also a tool you can use to gage your life coaching business results. But it leaves the question open as to which are the key elements you want to focus on to make the 100% effort count. You can run around the same tree at 100%, but it’s not going to advance your life coaching career.

Develop a Standard Ahead of Time to Ensure Your Life Coaching Business Succeeds

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Another way of determining if you are playing full out in your life coaching business is to set up the standard ahead of time. At the beginning of the week ask yourself, “What would it take for me to feel that I am prospecting at a level 10 out of 10.” Be honest with yourself. Ask the same question for all the aspects of your life coaching career that you are looking to have a result in for that week or for that day.

There are lots of ways to measure whether you are truly giving 100% to your life coaching business and your life coaching career. In coaching, performing at your best is not just about living on the edge. The key is to be honest with yourself, and continue to expand your comfort zones.

Colette Seymann

JTS Advisors Designated Accountability Coach

Technorati Tags: Life Coaching Business, Life Coaching Career