To start us off
“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure.” No truer words have been stated by former U.S Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Success is a result of consistent hard work and dedication, but mostly, having access to the right knowledge and expertise to become a successful business coach. Over the past few years, I have identified 7 essential aspects of a successful business coach:
1. Product Range
Given the current business climate, it is no longer sufficient to simply know how to coach or to know what to do during a coaching session. As a business coach, you need to develop or have access to a range of products and services that you can provide to your clients. In a volatile world where businesses are met with varying challenges, the type of products and services you can offer need to be broad enough to apply to a multitude of scenarios but specific enough to target common recurring issues that most businesses face.
Developing this range of products and services starts with establishing the various levels of engagement you want to offer:
- Entry Level: Business education programmes designed to teach people how to run a business
- Intermediate Level: Group business coaching or leveraging programmes offered to those who have an understanding of how to run a business but want to scale up. It is important to understand the difference between education and coaching. Understanding this distinction is key to knowing what to offer your clients
- Advanced Level: One-to-one business coaching that is more rigorous
2. Business Development Tools
You need to recognise that you are a business owner and you are responsible for your success. Most people fail in business coaching because they do not have a clear marketing and sales conversion strategy. Having access to or developing a range of business development tools in sales conversions and marketing is key. This process is twofold:
- Understand where you get your business leads from
- Understand how to convert the lead into a sale and how your marketing tools can facilitate that
A business lead is a person who has an interest in your business and is willing to pay money for your product and service. Your marketing strategy coupled with an effective sales conversion strategy needs to be mastered in order to obtain quality leads and convert them into actionable sales.
3. I.T Infrastructure
A reliable I.T infrastructure is an integral selling point for prospective clients and should be designed to house all Intellectual Property (IP), product and service material. This might entail investing a great deal into your business’ website to ensure that your clients have access to information even when you may not be available. It also shows prospective clients that if they sign with you as a business coach, they gain access to a plethora of resources at any given point in time. This infrastructure also allows you to provide premium access for clients and not to everyone at every point.
4. Quality Of Team
There is this common misconception that when you go into business coaching or when you are starting a business you can succeed completely independently. No matter how much you can bring to the table as an individual, at some point you need to be able to test the validity of your ideas with someone else. One needs to be able to engage in the intellectual sport that comes with the high-level problem-solving that running a business entails. Having a team that can is involved in that process creates a unique depth to the solutions given, which begins to establish a community and culture of peer-to-peer learning and idea-sharing where people are open and ready to share.
5. Initial Training and Support
You can be trained by some of the best business institutions and it will still not guarantee your success as a business owner; you need to couple that knowledge with the expertise provided by someone who knows what running a successful business looks like. Your initial training is theoretical until you apply it well enough to start converting a business lead into a sale.
The second aspect of this is the ongoing support that is required during the initial phase. The learning curve you experience when you go into business for yourself is incredibly steep and from the day you decide to leave your corporate job to the day you start earning your first independent salary, you are constantly growing. If you are not prepared to go on a personal development journey, the growth of your business may be short-lived.
6. Recognition
You are starting a business and you need to fully comprehend this. The business is yours and its success is wholly dependent on the decisions you choose to make. In this regard, a business owner has one of two options:
- Invest upfront into a business model, such as ActionCOACH, where you buy access to all important information
- Start the business completely independently
In both cases, an investment is needed. In the first case, the investment is an upfront investment into a business coaching firm, which saves you time and money, while buying you world-class expertise and proven products and services. In the second case, there is a continuous investment over some time, which involves a great deal of trial and error before you establish your success formula. Should you choose the independent route, you will be spending more time and money getting your business started, as opposed to the time and money you would save if you use the expertise of an established business coaching franchise such as ActionCOACH. Starting a business is no small fete. Recognising where you can outsource help during the incubation period is one of the best decisions you will make as a new business owner.
7. Results
We all love a success story, especially when you are selling a product that aims to help businesses become successful. Showing that your products and services work has incredible benefits for your business in the long run. Firstly, it helps you track progress because you know how well your product is working at specific points in time. Secondly, it develops the confidence your clients have in your business and its products. Lastly, you build credibility as a reputable organisation whose tools, products and services foster significant growth within a remarkable span of time.
In conclusion
At the end of the day, starting a business is not for everyone. If you are looking to start a business as a business coach, then you need to come into the industry with the necessary skills to ensure you build a track record of success from the beginning; that is what business owners are buying from you as a business coach. By having these 7 essentials, you are well on your way to successfully navigating your way around this business space.
