Do's and Don'ts For Coaches Ep: 019

Dec 13, 2020

Hey friends,

Welcome to Episode 19 of She Coaches Coaches. I’m so glad you’re here.

Today’s episode is part 1 of a 3-part series that I’ve created just for you. I’ve been a coach for a bunch of years, and I can’t think of anything I would rather do. I love coaching and in fact, I found that I love coaching more every single week. Every time I get off a zoom call with one of my private clients, I feel so fortunate to work with these amazing people.

Over the years, I’ve been part of many Facebook groups and I’ve seen the advertising from the gurus who want to tell you how to start your coaching business, how to make six figures as a coach, how to do it fast. 6 weeks to 6 figures and other interesting claims.

One of the things I find the most interesting is some of the “advice” and I’ve put that word advice in “air quotes”. Some of it I agree with and other advice puzzles me and frankly, it frustrates me because I don’t think it’s true and I don’t think it helps you.

This is why I’m doing this 3-part series. I’ve got 3 Do’s and 3 Don’t’s for new coaches. Each of these episodes I’ll cover 1 do and 1 don’t.

I’ll tell you what the Do or Don’t is, why I agree with it, or not and I would encourage to take in what I say and then have a good think for yourself.

So often we, especially us strong ambitious women, have a habit of being what I call a gold star student. We are great at following orders to a tee. But that approach doesn’t always help you here.

Now that you’re a coach and attracting your own paying clients it’s the perfect time for you to start deciding for yourself. You’re the boss, the CEO of your business and life. Choose what serves you, what helps you and use it. Put it into action, and then ignore the rest until you’re ready for the next step in growing your business.

Today’s Do and Don’t are:

Don’t #1: New coaches don’t need a website

Do #1: Learn to wear two hats. Be a great coach and a business owner.

Let’s talk about each of these. I’m going to start with the Don’t

Don’t #1: New coaches don’t need a website

Let me be clear, what I’m not saying is that you don’t need a website ever.

What I am saying is that having a website isn’t necessary for new coaches.

New coaches need clients and it’s a new world for you. Right?

What happens is this. I see lots of new coaches working on their website.

They’re choosing the branding, the colours, fonts and graphics. Writing the perfect copy to explain how you help people live their best life and feel fulfilled. Perhaps they’re working with a web designer or a branding expert.

They’re polishing the perfect bio and waiting until you’ve got a gorgeous headshot or lifestyle photo.

All of that is important, but not yet.

You don’t need a website to get your first paying clients.

And creating a website takes time and energy and if you get help there’s a hefty investment too.

What I’ve found is that most new coaches think that creating a website means that they are in business and that’s not true.

Creating a website keeps you behind your computer, polishing and perfecting, instead of talking to people, attracting clients and coaching.

The purpose of becoming a coach is to help people. It’s to coach them. Creating a website (at least at the start) isn’t coaching, isn’t making money, isn’t attracting clients.

Truthfully, no one will see your website anyway. Except maybe your best friend and the occasional person who looks it up.

You won’t be getting organic traffic, meaning no one is going to find yours through google. The people who come to your website are the ones who already know you in some way shape or form.

So, don’t spend a bunch of money and time making a pretty website before you start.

I know too many coaches who invested in creating a pretty website only to find that once they had coached their first 10 clients it needed to be changed.

They had grown, they learned way more about who they help and how they help them. Their voice had evolved, and the pretty new website was already obsolete.

I’m telling you this from direct experience. It was beautiful, and I’ll put a screenshot in the episode page so you can see what it looked like. So I want you to learn from my mistake. This is exactly what I did when I was starting. I want to help you, save time and get coaching!

Now, if you're listening and you’re already in the middle of making a website, it’s ok, don’t worry. I won’t have caught all of you before you started on the process, but maybe I can still save you some time now. Give yourself 48 hours to finish a very simple version. One that’s clean and informative, no fancy bells and whistles needed. Not until you’ve had your first paying clients anyway. Soon enough it will be time for you to have a website. Just hold off for a bit, wait until you’ve done some coaching and made a bit of money at it too.

Here’s what I recommend instead, use a social platform just one. Something like Instagram and post on there do stories, IG TV, reels. Experiment with your posts, have fun and find your voice.

As a coach, it helps to think of yourself as a new shop owner. You know a unique cute little shop that has the most interesting things.

As a shop owner, you’re not going to spend all your time on the window display but forget to unlock the front door, put up the welcome sign and greet your clients. You want to have something to sell (your coaching) and welcome these potential clients. Invite them to get to know you a little bit first (by IG posts, sample sessions, talking to people you know etc.)

You will find if you have a fancy website too early in your business It’s like you’ve spent all your time on the window dressing and have no cash register or stock to sell. In fact, you’ve got a pretty window, but the people are just walking by, occasionally they stop to admire your display and peer in the window, but there’s no one there and the door is locked. Let’s invite some people in.

Before I wrap up with this “don’t” let’s talk about the elephant in the room here. If you’re a new coach, finding your first clients can be nerve-wracking especially if you’ve never done anything like this before.

It can be really easy to fool yourself and feel like you’re doing something constructive by working on your website. But in the end, you’re going to have to talk to people, learn how to invite them to work with you. If’ you’re not feeling confident and you’re nervous it’s ok, that’s completely normal.

Have a listen to Episode 18 The 5Cs Confidence Cycle, or Episode 10 Levels of Learning, or Episode 3 How to Silence Self Doubt. I put the links in the show notes to make it easy for you to jump over there.

Do #1: Learn to wear two hats. A great coach and a business owner.

Sometimes when we’re in the middle of our coach training we think that’s enough, that’s all we’ll need and then clients will line up at our door, but I’m sorry, I’m going to break it to you gently. It’s just not true and that’s why you need to love wearing two hats.

Being a good coach is a skill, AND it’s a completely DIFFERENT skill from attracting clients and growing a business. If you want to thrive as a self-employed coach LOVE coaching and LOVE building your business.

When you take coach training you think. When I finish my certification, it will be great. Coaching is amazing.

Then there is a big surprise, most coaching students get their certificate and walk out the door and realize. “Oh, crap how do I get clients? I never even really thought about it. I just assumed clients would show up.”

All the instructors had clients, they talked about how much of an impact they have, we talked about how much they charge….but I don’t have anybody, expect my sister-in-law who is doing me a favour and she lets me practice my coaching on her.

Coaching is the conversation, where the coach asks questions, holds space (sometimes mentors) and helps the client decide what they want and what they don’t then the coach believes in the client and supports them while they do the work to get the results they want. Coaching – help people get what they want

Building a business is where you find clients and get paid to help people get what they want more of.

Building a business is the thing you get to do so you can do the thing you love to do, coaching.

It helps to keep in mind which hat you’re wearing today. Are you coaching client or are you doing something to get better at attracting clients?

When you realize you NEED the business, so you can do what you want it makes it easier. And when I say NEED the business what I mean is the business is the vehicle to get spend your time coaching so choose to enjoy this part of the ride too.

Your business can be simple and streamlined, you don’t need much to have a coaching business. There are only 5 basics steps are:

Find and talk to people,
Invite them to coach with you and when they say yes
Have a way to schedule their calls,
Get paid and
Keep in touch

Those 5 components are all you need. So yes, love coaching and love your business, enjoy the 5 steps of your business, and allow yourself to keep it simple and streamlined so you can spend more time coaching.

If you need more help in this area reach out to me. I can help you make this so much easier it’s exactly what I do to support my clients!

Hey, hope you join me again next week I’m diving into some do’s and don’ts for new coaches. You don’t want to miss these, it will save you money, time and energy and help you attract your best coaching clients.

Now, before we wrap it up! I want to tell you about a gift I offer to all my listeners. It’s my free resource library, an online vault filled with content I created to help you grow and become a coach. I call it The Coaches Online Business Academy and here’s how it works.

When you sign up for your free account, you get immediate access to all of my free resources and yeah there’s a lot of them, and it keeps growing every month! You can dive into my ‘narrow down your niche’ quiz. Then jump into the 5-day video training to kickstart your coaching business. There are a whole bunch of PDF guides and checklists. Including 147 proven coaching niches, a checklist for what you need to know as a brand-new coach and ideas for where to find paying clients ….plus more.

Like I said, each month I add more free resources and you’ll get notified as soon as I load them. It makes me happy to share this with you. It’s one of the ways I support my community and support the growth of coaching.

All you have to do is go to the episode description or the show notes and click on the link to sign up today. And that’s it.

I’ll talk to you next week

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