6 Steps To Growing Your Coaching Business 

I am a coach. And I’m passionate about helping coaches win.

This article is intended to help you win if you are a coach.

I know that you want to be a confident and successful coach. In order to do that, you need to grow your coaching business. The problem is, you’re not sure how to do it, which makes you feel anxious and question if you have what it takes. 

I believe you don’t have to do this alone. You deserve help from someone who’s been there. 

I understand that you’re doing everything you know how to grow your coaching business, which is why I have an approach that’s has helped me and many other coaches I have shared it with make $250,000 + a year as a coach, versus 1% of all coaches attaining that level on their own.

This article will help you stop being stuck with no growth in your coaching practice. Share it with other coaches, it will help them, too. 

Step 1: It’s Not about You

This isn’t original to me. It’s something one of my mentors taught me in a private coaching session a few years ago.

But I have really taken it to heart, and so have many of the people I have shared it with, and the results have been incredible.

Before I learned about this concept, and began applying it, I have been stuck at the low six figures in income several years in a row. I made more money every year, but not much more, maybe $3000-$5000 a year more.

The main reason was I sucked at asking for the sale. I had great rapport during the conversation with my prospect, and I really understood their problem, and how to help them. But I was focused on myself for the entire time we were together.

And as a result, I was nervous and uncomfortable, and in my head about getting the sale, and not present with the person in front of me and focused on serving them.

My conversion rate was not a high as it should have been. There were lots of people that needed my help, desperately, but I could not close the sale, because I could not get past my fear of what they would think of me.

They picked up on this, and naturally, may were put off by it, without necessarily knowing why, and they did not buy.

This hurt them, because I had the ability to solve their problem, and did not get to make that difference, so they stayed stuck. It hurt me, because I was less able to fulfill my purpose or fill my bank account. And that took away from the sum total of happiness the world.

If this is happening to you, you need to get:

IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU.

IT’S ABOUT THEM.

All of your messaging, all of your marketing, all of your sales efforts need to be about them, your customer, and not about you and your terrific process. They couldn’t care less what you do, or how you do it, until they are clear you understand them and their pain, and have a solution that solves it.  All your messaging should follow this sequence:

1. Your customer
2. Their pain
3. Your understanding of their pain
4. Your authority as someone who can solve it
5. Your solution
6. How great life will be when they solve it, versus how terrible it will be if they don’t 

Step 2: Commit

I have worked with a lot of successful coaches, who have made anywhere form $200,000 to $1 million a year in income.

One thing I learned from working with them is that at some point in our work together, they all became COMMITTED to their success and their specific financial and fulfillment goals.

One coach, for instance, started out making less than $20,000 a year. He was failing at his business, and he was worried he would have to give up his dream of being an independent personal trainer and go back to working at a gym.

He was INTERESTED in making more money, but at the time, he wasn’t COMMITTED to it.

Another loved what he was doing, and he did ok at it, but not well enough to take care of his family at the level he always dreamed of. When I asked him if he wanted to make $1 million, he said “Sure, I would. But how?”

The way he answered that question showed me he was interested, but not committed.

Both these men made a DECISION to COMMIT to their dream, and choke off their excuses.

When I asked them what was the key to them doing this, without hesitation both said it was because I helped them find the belief in themselves that they previously lacked.

That was what gave them the CONFIDENCE to DECIDE and COMMIT.

When it comes to making the next level of income this year, have you been INTERESTED or have you been COMMITTED?

Have you sought to find a mentor and peer group with a proven track record of helping others achieve this, or are you trying to do it alone, just like you did the last several years of your business alone, with no one to help, encourage, and guide you when the going gets tough?

Are you happy with your business income growth so far, or are you stagnating and stuck on a plateau that seems comfortable, but is really sucking your soul inside out?

Are you living a life of purpose and fulfillment, or is your belief being choked out by stagnation and a failure to grow?

Is your dream alive, or is it slowly dying?

Are you INTERESTED or are you COMMITTED?

If you really want your business to grow, commit. 

Now.

Step 3: Resources versus Resourcefulness

11 years ago, I was in the lowest point of my life. My then wife had left me, and I took it so hard that my world fell apart. My income went from $175,000 to $5000 a year. I was devastated and depressed. If not for the grace of God and the help of my family, I would be destitute and living on the street.

Can you relate?

I was at a conference and I saw a man speak. He seemed to be speaking to me. His message made sense to me, and I thought if I had his help, I would be able to turn things around.

At the end of his talk, I approached him and said “I want to hire you.”

“Ok. First you have to pay me. My fee is a minimum $5000 for 5 hours of Coaching.”

His words hit me hard. That was my whole year’s income!

“I don’t have that kind of money right now.”

He looked at me quizzically for a moment, and then gave me the best Coaching I ever got “I had a feeling you would say that. I’m going to do you a favor and give you some powerful Coaching. It’s not about how much resources you have, it’s about how resourceful you can get. If you don’t have the resources, and you want to turn that around, you need to get resourceful. You need to find a way. Otherwise, you’ll say stuck at where you at for a long time.”

Those were hard words to hear. But they were the truth.

I asked him to give me 48 hours.

He agreed.

I got into action. I called two prospects and offered them a hell of a deal if they signed and paid on the spot.

They took the deal.

I paid this coach, and my income went up to 6 figures in 6 months. Let me tell you, this was not going to happen on my own. On my own, my business would have plodded along, and I would have probably been forced to give up my dream and go get a job. Nothing wrong with getting a job, but that wasn’t my dream.

What about you? Are you letting your current resources or lack thereof determine your success, or are you resourceful and finding a way?

Step 4: Decisive versus Dabbler

In the previous Step, I told you the story of how I hired a coach whose fee was equal to my ENTIRE YEAR’s income.

What he taught me helped me earn 20X what I paid him in less than a year.

Be decisive. Don’t be a dabbler.

A dabbler is a professional seminar junkie. It’s someone who always takes the next course. A dabbler is looking for answers in a $20 book, or the next free event. They dabble in a lot of things, but they aren’t decisive, and they take forever to make a decision. They don’t really know what they want, and so they don’t know how to get their, or evaluate whether a program is going to get them there, because for them, there is no there, there. Their pain is real, and massive, but they keep distracting themselves from feeling it with happy talk, the next book, the next seminar, and social media and Netflix binging. They are the ones that MOST internet marketers say you want to NURTURE along, because they ‘might’ someday be ready to buy.

What a crock!

These folks are NEVER going to be ready to buy your big-ticket solution to their major league problem. They are not interested in solving it, they are simply interested in limping along and distracting themselves from the problem. If by chance they do buy, they are not a good for your program, because they are more trouble than they are worth, they won’t do the work and they will complain that you didn’t get them any results.

You want clients who are decisive. You want clients who are clear what their pain is, and are ready to confront it and vanquish it, with your expert help. They are not looking for bandaids, they are looking for solutions.

Are your prospects decisive or dabbling? If they are dabbling, is that because YOU are dabbling? If you want decisive clients, you need to be one! Like attracts like. If you can’t be decisive, you won’t attract decisive clients.

I have a No Dabbler Rule. The first person who adheres to it is me. 

Step 5: Raise Your Rates

It’s amazing to me how many people in our industry undervalue their expertise and their solution and don’t charge enough for it.

Let me give you an example.

I have a client, let’s call him Stephan. He’s a relationship coach, and he works with men whose marriages are in crisis.

He is one of the top Thought Leaders in the world when it comes to helping men deal with this acute problem.

When we started working together, he was struggling to find clients. He had 2-3, and he charged very little to work with them. They were in desperate need of his help, but they weren’t respecting his wisdom, so they didn’t take his coaching, and they went getting the results they said they wanted.

The first thing I coached him to do was to raise his rates. He resisted me — at first.

But I am persistent and relentless, and so he eventually did as I asked. He doubled his rates.

Three amazing things happened.

One, he doubled the number of clients he had, and then doubled that number again, in about 2 weeks.

Two, they started to respect his wisdom and take his coaching, and get better results.

That led to him to being known for knowing how to help men with their marriages in distress to turn that around, which according to the great Matt Church, is the very definition of a Thought Leader. And lo and behold, clients started to SEEK HIM OUT.

And last, but not least, he became a better coach when he charged more.

Why? Because when you get what you should get, you’ll give what you should give. 

When you don’t, you won’t.

And … he’s still undercharging!!!!

Are you charging enough? Are you valuing your offer? Or is something holding you back? Are you afraid prospects will not buy if you charge what you really want to charge?

Step 6: Ask For The Sale!

It’s stunning how many people in our industry do NOT ask for the sale, or do so in a wimpy, wishy-washy way.

If you do NOT have what the great Chris Widener calls a Direct Call To Action, aka asking for the sale, you are never going to make an extra 6 to 7 figures a year. NEVER.

You may be the best at solving a particular client’s problem. You may have the most amazing solution.

But clients are like people you want to date. If you don’t ask them out, someone who does ask them out will go out with them instead of you.

And that person may not have as good a solution as you. They may not be as good a person as you. They may not have their client’s best interests at heart. But they asked for the sale and you didn’t.  

Ask for the freakin’ sale!

What about you? Do you ask for the sale, or do you make excuses and shy away from it? 

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