Five things you need to start a coaching business
and five things you don't....
When you first become a coach, it can be difficult knowing where to start. You know where you want to be (working with paying clients), but knowing how to get there can feel like a bit of a maze!
It’s easy to look at more established coaches and decide that your business should look similar to theirs. However, while that’s a goal to keep in mind for the future, it’s unlikely their business looked the same when they first started out.
Below are the five things you need to get up and running as a professional coach, followed by five things that you don’t.
Five things you need
Apart from number one, most of the things below are free, or available at a low cost, and each one should take no more than an hour to set up. If you know you’re liable to fall into procrastinating or overthinking, you could try setting a timer to keep you focused and on track.
A qualification (or be studying towards one)
A professional and accredited coaching qualification teaches you the skills and knowledge you need to build an effective and ethical coaching practice. It also provides your clients with confidence that you can help them with the challenges they’re facing, and that working with you will be a worthwhile investment of their time and money.
There are many different options available, depending on whether you prefer to learn online or in-person, your availability, and the type of coaching you’d like to offer.
If you’re serious about making coaching a career, it’s best to pick a qualification that’s recognised by an external body, such as the International Coaching Federation (ICF), the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC), or the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM).
While cheap courses found on Udemy and similar sites can provide a very basic overview of coaching, and help you decide if it’s right for you, these won’t provide you with the level of knowledge required to help real clients with many of the challenges they face.
Working with clients while completing your training is a great way to practice your skills in the real world. However, it’s best to be honest about the fact that you’re still in training so they can make an informed decision about whether or not to work with you.
Video conferencing software
Many clients prefer the convenience of joining an online coaching session, rather than having to travel to a location, and either hope the bus will turn up or that they’ll find somewhere to park (I live in Bristol where neither of the above are ever guaranteed!). Online coaching also makes it easier for your clients to fit coaching into a busy life of work and family commitments.
As a coach, offering online coaching saves you paying for a coaching space to meet clients face to face, and gives you the flexibility to work from anywhere in the world. Even if you plan to offer some sessions face to face, having an online option significantly increases your number of potential clients.
There are several different video conferencing platforms available, with the most popular being Zoom, Google Meets and Teams.
A separate email address
There are several benefits to keeping your personal and business emails seperate. Some website platforms offer business email addresses for an additional fee, but even setting up an email address that’s simply ‘yourname_coaching@gmail/outlook.com’ will:
Make you look more professional (especially if your personal email address is something cute/funny that you set up as a teenager!)
Help you switch off on non-working days, so you don’t end up reviewing requests for discovery calls and client queries during your non-working hours (or the hours you should be focusing on your day job…)
Reduces the risk of client emails getting lost among all the other correspondence that is sent to your personal email every day
4. An online presence
Having an online presence shows potential clients that you’re a real (and qualified!) person. It’s somewhere that people can go to learn more about you, your skills and experiences, and how you can help them.
Your online presence could just be a social media account, but some coaches also like to set up a basic website or list themselves on a coaching directory.
If you choose to set up a basic website, there are plenty of options that make it easy to create a simple, visually appealing site without spending money on a web designer. Don’t forget, people will only visit your website if you’ve given them the address, or it’s listed somewhere people can easily find it. Your website won’t be showing up on the first page of Google (not yet, anyway!).
To tell people!
You could be the best coach in the world, but if no-one knows that you’re a coach, you won’t get any clients. While the idea of a ‘marketing plan’ might sound complicated, all you really need is a clear idea of how your potential clients will find out about you and the services you offer. Don’t forget, it’s best to pick 1-2 ways and do them consistently and well, rather than pick too many and spread yourself too thin.
Some ideas include:
Telling your existing network (family, friends and current/past colleagues that you’re a coach and the types of challenges you can help with)
Consistently posting on your favourite social media channel
Networking events
Pitching to appear on podcasts/write guest blogs/run online workshops
Reaching out to associate coaching platforms and/or businesses who may want to offer coaching to their employees
Five things you don’t
Many coaches get sucked into spending hours trying to find the perfect business name or perfect logo. Although this can *feel* like you’re making progress, it’s usually a way to keep safe and in your comfort zone rather than doing the scary things, like putting yourself out there and starting to work with real, paying clients.
The below are things you might want to consider down the line once you have paying clients, but for now are likely to be a distraction from the work you actually need to do.
A business name
Unless you already have a clear idea of what you’d like to call your business, it’s fine to just be ‘Your Name Coaching’ for now. You can always change this in the future if you want to.
A logo
Again, unless you already have a logo, or a very clear idea of what you’d like this to look like and are able to design it yourself, this is something that can firmly be left in the ‘something I might want to think about later on’ pile.
As you build up your coaching, the type of coaching you want to offer and the types of clients you want to work with could evolve and change. Therefore, spending time or money on a professionally designed logo is unlikely to be a wise investment at this stage.
If you do really want to play around with business names and logos, you could set a timer for an hour, see if anything comes up, and if you still have nothing after an hour leave it until you have started working with paying clients.
A professionally designed website
In the future, as your brand develops, you might want to consider hiring a web designer to create a website that perfectly reflects you and your business. However, if you do want a website as a new coach, there are plenty of platforms where you can create something yourself for free or at a low cost.
Most clients simply want to know how you can help them, and they can find this out just as easily on a basic website as a fancy one. Website design also takes time, and what you don’t want is to put launching your business on hold because you need to wait for your website to be finished.
Expensive coaching programmes
Coaches who coach coaches are everywhere, and often promise that a fully booked coaching calendar lies on the other side of paying them a substantial sum of money.
Some of these programmes also use pushy or manipulative sales tactics to get you to spend your hard-earned cash. If you do feel like a coaching programme could be the right thing for you, why not check out my post on things to consider before you invest in a coaching programme.
Setting up a business can be lonely, so if you do feel like you need support or accountability, why not set up a call with other new coaches in your network to discuss how your businesses are going and talk through any challenges.
Fancy call booking software
While it’s good to have an easy way for potential and current clients to arrange sessions with you, this isn’t something that you need to spend lots of money on when you’re just starting out. Most booking platforms, such as Calendly or Tidycal, have free or low-cost options to suit the needs of a new coach.
I find that it’s easiest to book my next session with a client at the end of our current one, and this allows me to be more flexible than I could be if I had to decide my availability months in advance. All I need is a way for people to book discovery sessions, and I find the free version of Calendly has everything I need.
The other option is to arrange discovery calls over text or email, which can be time-consuming but is manageable when you only have a handful of clients.
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About me
Hi, I’m Claire and I’m a financial coach who helps my clients create thriving financial futures, without giving up the things they love.
I have 10 years experience working within the financial services industry, and a Diploma in Transformative Coaching from Animas Coaching School, which is accredited by the International Coaching Federation (ICF).
I believe that high-quality coaching should be accessible to everyone, not just those with thousands of pounds to spend, and that it’s never too late (or too early!) to build a better relationship with money.
You can find out more about me here.