Great coaching businesses thrive if they are built on solid foundations. I consider the foundations to be a tripod of strong coaching qualifications, clear assessments and use of our coaching solopreneur skills and a heavy dose of knowing our personal purpose in why we want to be a coach.
Building a business to house your coaching practice once you intend to deliver coaching services for income is easier to construct if you have spent the time setting the depth and nature of the concrete. Working as a professional coach, this means obtaining the appropriate qualifications to ensure we will deliver the coaching standards expected of our qualification level and the label we give our coaching products. As coaching is now more likely to be understood as a helping or learning resource, we need to be clear that we have the right qualifications that enable us to deliver on what we are promising our customers and that we do no harm.
Knowing you have the right qualification will not only build your coaching confidence, but it will also prepare you to operate in an effective and safe way that is good for your business. Selecting the right qualification also has multiple benefits as you offer credibility, having prepared strong ethical and boundary thinking and it will help you deploy coaching models that work. Knowing your coaching qualification will be enough to link up and work towards your accreditation pathways with the accreditation organisation of your choosing. It will also enable you to act on your business strategy that should involve knowing how your Coaching Bio will open doors to your ideal client.
Establishing clarity on what skills will be needed to run your business will reduce the fear of being captain of your ship. Many of the skills needed to be the CEO of your coaching business will be intrinsic to you and similar to the skills required of you as a coach, but you will be able to learn others once you have assessed what is needed. Knowing your strengths as a business owner and being honest about what needs development can become part of your learning plans and you can turn to other entrepreneurs for help and learning resources.
Finally, starting with looking at how owning a business fits with your life purpose and digging into your career and your ‘why’ will help you find the courage to start building, then maintaining a business and then helping it grow. If you are still not clear on why you want to be a coach, then start with some exercises that help you explore what has led to the jumping off point of this career step.
Still needing help to figure this out? Then the exercises in ‘The Coaching Solopreneur’ book can help you or do watch the video in the community around finding your purpose.
How are your foundations looking now? If solid then you are ready to build the walls!
Kate