The Two Aspects of Building a Coaching Business

Most people starting a coaching business focus on acquiring the skills they need to be a great coach. That’s obviously necessary, but the other part of the equation is learning how to develop a business.

The foundation, Kari believes, is to provide extraordinary service and to always be on the (never-ending) path to mastery. A vital part of this taking the time to integrate learnings and develop our own approach that feels deeply authentic, rather than simply copying a model we’ve learned.

Making Friends with Sales

Most coaches have issues with sales, but a business is not a business without clients so it’s imperative that we examine our relationship to selling our services.

One distinction that Kari offers is that coaching is not the offer, coaching is a vehicle for the offer. The offer is the potential future that the two of you discuss. They’re not buying the number of sessions or whatever structure you’re proposing, they’re buying their future.

As a coach you are a co-creator of possibilities. That means you are being someone who co-creates a relevant future and a way to make that future a reality.

The Transformative Enrollment Conversation

In the beginning you just listen to understand, as you would in a coaching session; you’re listening for what’s up for the person, for where there’re at, for what world they’re immersed in and the why they’ve come to you.

The next step is finding out what their fundamental cares are (“It sounds like this is really important to you”) and from there a new future starts to show up as they begin to give voice to that vision.

From there you can start suggesting strategies for how to get there, which can include a coaching structure. You can then say “Would you like to see a proposal for me? And suggest that they start working on some outcomes they’d like.

Creating a Great Proposal

What makes an offer interesting is bridging the person’s fundamental cares with what’s possible. Once you’re relatively sure the prospect is going to go for working with you, you can start putting together the proposal and ask them for their desired outcomes to include those.

You can also relate back to the enrollment conversation you had, and the future vision. They’re buying the outcomes, not the structure. One important thing is to make sure that your structure is able to provide the outcomes you’re agreeing to co-create.

Resources mentioned:
Dr. Fernando Flores
Leadership Impact Podcast