Why Building A Successful Coaching Business Isn’t Easy...

In this article I am going to explain why building a successful coaching business isn't easy based on my own experience of failing and succeeding in my own businesses over the last 8 years.

We all know that nothing worth having in life is easy to achieve, that is not a new phenomenon, it doesn't matter whether we are talking about relationships, health, business etc, to achieve any level of success there is no avoiding problems and road blocks along the way.

I know I'm stating the obvious here and as I read this back it sounds a bit patronising and cliche'd but I wanted to talk about this because it's the biggest and most important lesson I have learned in the last 42 years of my life.

Before I get onto why building a successful coaching business isn't easy I want to quickly explain why I decided to focus all of my time and energy on helping coaches specifically, when I could use my skills to help many other types of business owner.

I've never talked about this because it's not really relevant to my clients and I'm sure you don't stay awake at night wondering why I do what I do! you probably don't even know me.

But the reason I want to briefly tell you this is because it matters, and it really matters for you as well if you want to be successful in your coaching business.

I come from a family of teachers, both my parents and my two sisters are school teachers so I have been surrounded my educators all of my life, and to be totally honest teaching never really appealed to me and I didn't see my self as an educator for the first 15 years of my career.

But when I left my corporate job due to severe back problems in 2012 I had to find a way of making a living for myself, I couldn't do the long commutes or sit for 10 hours a day at a desk anymore, so my only option was to start my own business.

I tried everything from affiliate marketing to selling physical products on Amazon and I had very little success due to my naivety and lack of experience in starting and growing a business.

But to cut a long story short I came to the realization that the only way I would ever have a successful business was if I got help from someone that had achieved what I wanted to achieve. It took me a few years to realize that I couldn't do it all myself and I had to drop my ego and admit I needed help.

That's when I paid my first coach to get help with my business and I borrowed even more money to pay a guy $5,000 for a 1 month program, which at the time was a lot of money for me.

That was one of the best decisions I have ever made for a couple of reasons.

1. I finally had a plan and a strategy to get to where I wanted to go
2. I realized that coaching was what I wanted to do

I had an amazing experience working with my first coach, my whole world opened up because I suddenly had this person that was there for me and pushed me when I needed pushing, but most importantly I had clarity and belief that I could achieve far more that I even thought possible.

'You don't know what you don't know'

And that is what a good coach can do, they will make you see things from a completely new perspective and that new way of thinking can then be applied to every area of your life, not just business.

Working with my first coach made me realize that coaching could be an amazing opportunity for me to share my experience with the world and the best way for me to do that was to help people with their sales and marketing, because that is what I has done to a fairly high level in my corporate career for over 10 years.

So that's what I did, I started my first coaching business in 2013, but that isn't what I want to talk about. What is more important is why I decided to help people in the coaching niche rather than Lawyers or Accountants for example.

What I had started to realize after working with a couple of my own coaches is that coaching is powerful and it has the potential to make a huge impact, so if I could help coaches in niches' like health, fitness, relationship and business, I could have a much bigger impact.

By helping 10 coaches with their sales and marketing I would potentially be helping hundreds of individuals as a bi-product of the work we did together, and that's exciting.

My two passions in life are helping people have a better life, and marketing, so it makes perfect sense for me to do what I do. If you don't love what you do and you don't put other people first, business is really hard.

But the reason building a coaching business is hard is because it is a business and has to be treated like one. Again that might sound obvious but so many coaches I speak to aren't treating their business like a business.

They are scared and embarrassed to sell because they feel pushy or sleazy. They don't have a strategy and a plan and just wing things, and they prioritize all the wrong things.

The fact is unless you have a strategy and a system to grow your coaching business you won't find new clients which means you are drastically limiting your impact. People can't get the help they need from you if they don't become a client, so forget YOUR income, you are doing a dis-service to your market by not becoming their coach!.

The trouble is there are thousands of 'Marketing Coaches' out there pushing you into the latest marketing gimmick or hack and they are telling you that you are only 'One Funnel Away' from success.

The only way to be successful in any business coaching included, is to have a plan, a strategy and a system. Without those things you will keep going round and round in circles and getting more and more frustrated.

It all boils down to focusing on the right things, you actually need to be doing less not more but that can only happen when you are lazer focused on the RIGHT things and by eliminating all the activities that make you feel good but lead to nothing.

So if you are truly amazing at what you do and you put the results of your clients before your own results you are already half way to having the kind of coaching business and lifestyle you want..

But you need a plan and you need help to get there!

Finding clients and making money is so much easier when you know what path to take, and it does require hard work, it does require hours of your time and dedication, it won't happen over night but you already know that deep down.

As I said at the beginning, 'nothing worth having in life is easy to achieve'

But it's much easier if you have someone that believes in what you do and guides you in the right direction and keeps you accountable.

But I know from my own experience that finding the right person to help is a mine field in its self. There are thousands of people out there that would be willing to take your money and tell you that they will transform your business, and then massively under deliver or worse still, just disappear.

But the best way to find the right person is to talk to them! yes you read that right, I mean have a proper conversation with them and build a relationship. As humans we have this wonderful thing called gut instinct, and you should follow it.

That's not the only gauge of whether someone is the right person to help you but it should be the first thing you look at, as well as proof of results, testimonials etc.

So to practice what I preach I offer 20 complimentary discovery calls every month to coaches who are struggling and want to discuss what they are doing now and how that could be improved.

The main purpose of these calls is for me to find out more about you, your business and what you do to help your clients, and I will give you some very honest feedback based on what you’re doing right now. 

I will also give you a strategy that you can start implementing into your business straight away based on your specific business and niche.

The call is totally free of charge and you will walk away with a lot more clarity on how to improve your marketing.

If you want my help and we mutually decide there is a fit for us to work together we can discuss that. However, if that’s not the case you will still get huge value from our conversation.

You Can Book A Call HERE

In the meantime I think you will get huge value out of my training workshop as I explain why most coaches are not getting results in their marketing and why doing things differently from the masses is the key to your success.

Access The Training HERE

I hope you have found this article helpful,

If you have any questions you can send me a PM anytime and we can have a chat.

And please feel free to share this article if you think it might be helpful to others.

Sam Hutchinson