Episode 73: Spinning Out? No More Second Guessing. Here’s Exactly What You Need To Do As A New Coach. 

How Do I Start Off As A Coach?

This episode is for you if you’ve ever said I don’t know what to do. Or I’m spinning, confused and stuck where do I start?

I want you to know I hear you and in this episode I’m going to tell you exactly what to do, so you’ll never wonder again.

I’m going to share with you three things you need to do. 

This approach is for any of you new coaches, and really for any coach who is feeling stuck and wants to create a bigger impact, a positive difference with your coaching.

Let’s dive in with the three things to do.

Decide

The first, is decide.

Everything starts with a decision. I want you to decide to be a coach. When you make the decision all that second guessing about should I or shouldn’t I falls away.  This first step puts you into motion. 

Now you’ve got a purpose, an aim, a place that you’re heading.

When I used to think about the act of deciding I believed it was something I did once and then that’s it I was good. But I’ve learned that approach didn’t help me exactly the way I’d like.  Now I recommend deciding every day, and depending on what’s going on sometimes I even decide hourly.

So every day, that’s your first step. Decide to be a coach. 

Note I didn’t say decide to become a coach, I said decide to BE a coach. That means commit, and be a coach today.

Now I now if you’ve just started your training your probably protesting…but but but I’m just a baby coach, I’m a newbie. Hear me on this, be a coach, means to be the best most capable coach you can be today.

Tomorrow, next week, next year you will evolve and become more capable, of course you will. Every coach is always evolving, honing their skills and improving. But when I say BE a coach, I want you to practice thinking like professional coach, feeling the decisiveness of already being /holding those qualities that coaches have and do the things that coaches do. However, you imagine it to be with what you know right now.

It will completely change your experience, instead of the back and forth of indecision, which is a place of wasted energy you get to move forward on the next step and then the next and the next.

Share

The second thing you can do when you’re not sure where to start or what to do next is share. Once you’ve decided you get to share what you’re doing with others.

This means share that you’re a coach. Tell them. Tell people you know in conversation, introduce yourself as a coach to new people you’re meeting.

This practice, the practice of sharing what you’re doing might feel a little nerve wracking.

I think it can be for a few reasons

• We want people to be as excited as we are
• We know that most people have no idea what a coach does
• We’re worried about other people’s opinions.

Sure, we want people to be excited for us and some will. And some won’t, and that’s ok. Do you really want to live your life only allowing yourself to move forward and make the difference you want to make contingent on whether everyone else is excited for you or not?

We’re all living our own life, even the people who are close to you will probably never be as excited about you becoming a coach as you would like.

And that’s ok. We’re all focussed on our own stuff and worries and joys.

Don’t wait for anyone else’s excitement – give it to yourself.

Another reason you might worry because many people have no idea what a coach is or what they do. I wouldn’t let this worry hold you back.  The people around you and your potential clients will learn with time

Consider this, we’ve all heard of dentists right? So how many of you think well I’ve heard the term dentist, but I don’t know absolutely everything that a dentist does and I should know that before I go and see one. It also doesn’t make you question what’s going one if your cousin decides to be a dentist. Right? 

A dentist helps people have a healthy mouth and teeth. That’s enough right? There’s no way we would want to know every single little thing about dentistry before we visit a dentist, ask for help or form an opinion about a career choice. So why would we worry that some people don’t know exactly what a coach does. They can learn 

Coaches help people get more of what they want and less of what they don’t want by learning how their thoughts and perspectives can serve them better. Coaches help people improve every aspect of their life.

That’s good enough for me. 

One final common worry, OPO (other people’s opinions). Do you want people to approve of your choices and what you do? Well, let’s think about this together, we actually have no idea what other people are really thinking, someone may think it’s great, others think it’s terrible and most people are somewhere in between.

This reminds me of the Eleanor Roosevelt quote: 

You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do. 

Your opinion about what you’re doing is the one that matters the most. If you want to be a coach and you’ve decided to be one then you also get to decide that you like this choice too. 

Coach and be coached 

So you’ve decided to be a coach, you’ve told others what you’re doing now it’s time to learn how to coach. 

You learn how to coach in three primary ways. 

• Take coach training
• Get coached
• Coach others

Coach and be coached covers all of these options.

Take coach training, learn how to coach and experience coaching for yourself.

Get your own coach, experience coaching for yourself. Grow from being coached. If you don’t believe in coaching for yourself it will be difficult to explain how coaching will help a potential client. If you’re not willing to invest the time energy and money then why should they?

Coaching others can be practice coaching or it can be coaching people for free, for a reduced rate or for your regular rate. 

The more you coach, the better you will be. As a professional it’s on us to continually be learning and upgrading our coaching skills. Coaching is one of the main ways to accomplish this.

If you’re new, offer to coach people for free.

It can be 20 free sessions with 20 people

It can be 100 reduced rate sessions with 100 people

They can be short laser coaching sessions of 15 minutes or longer one-hour sessions.

It can be what I call the ‘5 by 5’. This is where you offer free or reduced rate coaching to five people for five sessions each.

Any one or any combination of these options will give you experience. And that’s what you want. Experience.

You will grow a more solid belief in yourself as a coach, in the value of coaching and in your coaching skills. And you will know in your gut that you can handle all kinds of challenges. So coach lots when you’re starting out.

Sometimes the question of do I coach for free or reduced rate or full rate comes up with my private clients. Here’s what I recommend, do whatever makes it easiest for you. If free is easiest, great do that! Then as you become more competent, capable and confident as a coach you will find it easy to begin charging for your services and before long you can raise your rates.

Better to be fully booked (however you define that) at a lower rate than have no clients at a high rate.  Increase your rates as you create more demand for your coaching

So my advice to you is take the option where you have the least amount of resistance.

You are not going to only be a coach for three months, so this short term ramp up is going to be a very very small portion of your entire journey to being a well paid and successful coach. It’s a small investment of your time and energy for the long-term benefit of a thriving fully booked practice. 

So those are the three top things I recommend every new coach do when you’re not sure exactly what to do.

Decide

Share what you’re doing

Coach, coach and coach some more

Did you notice that none of these are – build a website, choose your perfect coaching niche, decide whether you’re going to do video or written content, consider whether you want to be on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tiktok or any of the other social media platforms. Notice I didn’t speak about any of that?

This is intentional and it’s because it’s not the best use of your time when you’re starting out. Which means wait until you’ve coached some people and signed some paying clients

Doing the right things in the right order will help you start and grow your coaching business quickly and effectively.

You’re never going to be a successful coach by spending all your time building a website or carefully crafting a social media campaign.

Let me say that again…. Doing the right things in the right order will help you start and grow your coaching business quickly and effectively.

All of these: your niche, your website, your content strategy your social media approach, whether you do group programs, keynote speaking, deliver workshops in person or virtually. All of those ARE important, but not yet.

Let’s get you started and then you can tackle those things

And getting you started means

1. Deciding your going to be a coach and thinking, feeling and take action as a coach. Start to inhabit those qualities
2. Sharing that you are a coach with people you know and people you meet
3. Coaching others and being coached yourself 

Take this simplified approach for just a short time, and then once you’ve coached some people and you have some paying clients….now you’re ready to take the next steps! 

Wow, we’ve covered a lot, and I appreciate you being here with me and listening to this episode 

I’m honored to invite you to be part of my community too. If you’re ready to get started, sign up for my free resource library. The Coaches Online Business Academy, there’s lots of free help waiting for in there right now.

And if you want even more help, maybe you’ve had enough of trying to figure it all out on your own or taking hours and hours piecing together a solution by watching YouTube videos.  Then we should talk about how we can work together. I’ve got a few spaces open in my calendar for private clients.

Click the link in the episode notes to find out how to apply to work with me.

I’ll be back to talk with you next week.

Featured on The Show:

 Coaches Online Business Academy – free resource library