Opening the rolodex for 2026

When I last sat down to write last autumn, I was full of intentions to up my writing, do more marketing and have a fast start to 2026 for both my coaching and my coach development services. Here I am at the end of January, and these intentions have drifted and I am reflecting on why.

Despite being in my ninth year of running my coaching business, I am feeling the most torn in terms of where I spend my time. Being an independent coach has always allowed me to work the hours that suit my other life roles and at the end of last year I was so grateful to have enough work to also allow me to support extended family needs. I then saw bookings for 2026 get to a level of safety particularly for coach development work and I was quickly deep in short term delivery rather than spending time on the long-term activities on the to do list. And I felt guilty about this given it is not what I preach as The Coaching Solopreneur!

I have spent some time this week trying to work out what the block is as it is not lack of time, which is the usual excuse. It’s definitely more about having the motivation. Despite having the goals and strategies set out for 2026, I may need coaching to get going as the blockages in mindset are clearly in the way.

Sharing these blocks might help me to move past them. Firstly, I am very aware that my youngest is in the last six months of school before leaving to an exciting future in the arts and I am going to admit I love the role that I play which we call “ momanager” in jest of my Kris Kardashian side without the funds! As a result of this role, January has been more about getting her to auditions and waiting for her to return and less about building up my coaching client pipeline. This is scary as I hope the outcome of an empty nest in September will mean I will have no excuses to move from a part-time to full-time coaching availability. Yet I fear that the demand for the time offered might not be there as I question if the market demand for coaching by an independent has moved on.

The other motivational block I need to address is the decreasing amount of opportunity I see to be valued as a coach with my target audience which has been the corporate buyer of coaching. It is getting even tougher to be seen as a provider against the power of the coaching platforms and boutique coaching providers. I work for them too and am starting to see their work and my private client opportunities become a smaller number in the forecast. My P&L spreadsheet is the most worrying as I can see how much my costs have increased but also how my session rates have declined in relative terms of inflation and I am down by 20% in relative value per hour of income from where I started. Talking to my network of superb coaches, we all agree there have been no session rate increases in contract work over the last four years. Whilst I can raise my private client rates the corporate buyer is not going to warm to lack of proof in the value of my annual 300 hrs of leadership coaching when delivered via confidential contracts. This is a problem as most of my showcase of work experience and value generation has been working with the 500 FTSE and multiple global corporate clients where disclosure of the client, the metrics and results is a breach of contract.  

Lastly, I have come to the conclusion that whilst I will align with using AI to support my business I have decided to trust that my coaching delivers through my natural ability to offer a thinking partnership perfected through my experience and leadership coaching presence. I don’t know how long the demand will last for coaching as a human being that is not AI augmented, but I am prepared to stay the course in being authentic to who I am and how I coach. For those that know me, I am at my very best when you allow me to walk into your world, your head and heart and you share what you want to learn and discover about yourself as a leader. Over the course of the last nine years, I have worked with over a least 3 big branded corporate clients for nearly every letter of the alphabet and I hope to see out the next four years doing the same again without AI doing the work for me. It’s a rolodex of leaders who I know remember the outcomes of their objectives without an AI intervention.

What should I do next? Well, I think it’s time to shout about my abilities as a coach and share more stories of what I am up to – time to open up the rolodex of contacts and let them know I am still here and still an asset to their organization. This isn’t marketing it’s selling and working with existing relationships to get referrals. My intention is to focus on calls and connections over marketing as this has always paid off for me. As a result, I am going to do less on the coach development side, and The Coaching Solopreneur will need to be even quieter than in 2025. The community is now closed, and I am updating my book and website to reflect that. There are plenty of other people now who help coaches with their business.  I strongly believe it’s important to check if they are successfully coaching themselves in today’s market to be credible and leave that up to you! If I can build the pipeline to where coaching is back to over 50% of my income, I will be back but for now it is time to focus on my coaching work in 2026. If you are reading this and need to know more get in touch! Kate

PS at the time of writing phone rings and my daughter has another recall…back to Momanager – how lucky am I to know that my time is valuable elsewhere too!