Originally Posted on The Coaching Tools Company as Ruby McGuire's Top 10 Tips for Building a Thriving Coaching Business
In this article we’ve reviewed common themes from Ruby’s articles over the years and summarised her wisdom into these Top 10 Essential Business Tips.
There are some great inspirations in here. And we’d love you to comment below with your favourite ideas!
Here are Ruby’s Top 10 Tips for Success in your Coaching Biz
1) Set a plan and follow it
Knee jerk reactions aren’t great when you’re running a business; you need focus, direction and a plan!
If you keep changing directions you’ll waste loads of time, energy and possibly even money. Set a plan and follow it through. Don’t get distracted.
2) Be consistent (and persistent)
It can be easy to get sucked into writing an enormous action plan for your business—when actually, consistency is what you need.
Because we often overcomplicate our business. We try something new and give up before it’s taken root. But some things are slow builders in your business, and you just need to keep being consistent: doing the basics ‘on repeat’ is what creates the bigger successes.
3) Focus on doing the right things (things you believe in)
Faffing around getting every word perfect on your website and creating pretty graphics doesn’t bring in the business. Specific client-attraction tasks do.
It’s too easy to sit and brainstorm a list of things to do. If you’re anything like a lot of my clients (and me!) you have a ‘To Do’ list as long as your arm. The important thing is to make sure they’re the right things to do—and that you’re not just doing them because someone else thinks they are a good idea.
You’ll get way more work done, the quality of the work will be better, you’ll feel more productive and you’ll free up space to do all those other lovely things you enjoy doing outside of your business.
4) Make time to play
Making time to play gives you a fresh perspective. Time away from focused effort is often when new ideas come up.
What I’ve realised is that when I have more fun in my business and stop being so flippin’ serious, that’s when I do my best work and get the best results. What about you?
5) Create a Self-Care Maintenance Plan
A coping strategy is not enough. You end up just doing all you can to get through a rough patch, when what you need is a maintenance plan…
So create self-care a ritual, something you repeat day in and day out: avoid getting into a negative spiral, catch big issues early and stay healthy—and productive!
And make sure you’ve given yourself enough time to recharge. Hustle for a while—keeping a good solid focus—and then slow down so that you get a good balance.
6) Make a game of your goals
Some people love goals. And some people, not so much. But whether you love them or not, writing down measurable SMART goals is what helps us succeed.
To make goal-setting more fun why not set yourself some mini-targets? For example:
- Reach out to _____ people a week to offer your services.
- Write 2 newsletters a month.
- Do a video once a week.
- Ask 3 clients for testimonials.
7) Find an accountability partner/s
Tell someone what you want to do. I find once you declare it out loud to someone you’re more likely to do it!
The accountability partners I work with won’t pander to my excuses. They’ll tell it to me straight if they think I’m procrastinating or acting from a place of fear.
Because you have to get out of your own way if you want to grow your business. So get someone to support you in taking action—a coach, mentor or friend, mastermind group or accountability partner.
8) Get comfortable with “failing”
When you move out of a problem-focused mindset into a solution-focused mindset, you can overcome any obstacles and challenges that come your way.
“Failures” are just opportunities to learn and grow. If a problem comes up again, you’ll have tools in your toolbox to move past it quickly.
I also love the idea that “Everything is a lesson or a blessing”… Often when you look back, you realize it was a lucky escape.
9) Actively learn
When you’re a coach, it’s almost a given that you’re on a lifelong journey of learning. Your learning doesn’t just stop because you qualified as a coach. Next you need to learn how to be a business owner. After that, you might choose to go through various accreditation levels to improve your skills.
So if you want to become the expert or go-to guy or gal, you need to build on your skills and knowledge constantly.
10) Know and celebrate your strengths
A great way to build self-belief is to acknowledge and recognize your strengths. Sadly we tend to play down our strengths, thinking everyone can do what we do. This is rarely the case.
You have a unique combination of strengths, knowledge and expertise, and being fully aware of them builds that strong mindset.
Wrap-up
If you want your business to grow, you must keep being brave. Dipping your toe in and out isn’t an option! You must keep at it!
The tips above are a combination of working hard, focusing, making sure you enjoy the journey and taking care of you.
If you liked this article with Top 10 Business Building Tips from Ruby, you may also like:
- 5 Ways to Breakthrough Fear in Your Coaching Business! by Ruby McGuire
- 3 Skills You Need to Be a Leader in Your Coaching Biz (even though it feels scary!) by Ruby McGuire
- Radical Resilience – Why and How to Build it With Your Clients! by Delaney Tosh
