12 Tips to be Successful in Your Coaching Business from the Awesome Jennifer Britton!

Originally Posted on The Coaching Tools Company as 12 Tips to be Successful in Your Coaching Business from the Awesome Jennifer Britton!

I never cease to be amazed by the breadth and depth of Jennifer Britton’s expertise and experience. Whether it’s how to create your signature group coaching program, running a retreat, building your business and getting organized with systems and tools, creating a WOW online and keeping virtual clients engaged, Jennifer has you covered.

She has written 7 books on coaching related topics (starting with Effective Group Coaching in 2010) as well as 46 articles for us over the last 10 years!

So, as part of our grow your business focus this month, I’ve collected some of my favourite wisdom from Jennifer’s articles for you.

Here are 12 Tips to Help You Find Success in Your Coaching Business

1. Create systems: I have seen businesses both flourish and falter over multiple decades and continents. A differentiator I have seen is having systems as a foundation. Systems save time—and enable automation as your business grows. And importantly, they also ensure a consistent experience for partners and clients—across time and location.
   • What do you want to create? What things are you doing regularly that don’t have a system yet?
   • What can be automated?
   • What can be simplified? What do you do regularly, or do regularly with your clients?
2. Know your clients communication preferences: Knowing your clients and their preferences around how they want to connect and engage with you, and what topics they are interested in is a foundational part of successful marketing. Do your people engage with and look to social media? Do they value face to face connection? Would they prefer a referral? Do they read noticeboards in coffee shops?
3. Learn what is ‘good enough’: The pace of change in the remote space can be dizzying. It’s helpful to learn to be OK with things being ‘good enough’ and not perfect. In the pursuit of perfection, it’s likely that the context will have changed already.
4. Adopt a growth mindset: In a remote business, adopting a growth mindset where you’re always learning is important. Whether it’s a new technology, new feature, new skill, new marketing method or something else—you need to stay current.
5. Maintain your visibility: Don’t let ‘out of sight’ lead to ‘out of mind’. Be proactive in building relationships, communicating and addressing issues. Just as quickly as your world changes, so do your partners. Visibility can take many forms—emails, phone and video calls, instant messages etc.
6. Leverage your strengths to grow your business: Marketing is an ongoing process that doesn’t end after your first year in business, it’s an ongoing process of dialogue (written, verbal, images, video) with your audience. As such, where do your strengths and talents lie? Are you a great writer or an exceptional speaker? For example, if you’re a great speaker and your group hangs out on social media, you could record a short video and post it on Facebook or LinkedIn. If you love writing and you have a newsletter list, you could write a post and send it out.
7. Create a Signature Program: Signature Programs are the coaching programs you become known for—they become  your ‘body of work’. They come in many shapes and sizes, and usually evolve based on what your clients are interested in. They are uniquely you and have your fingerprints all over them—reflecting your values, philosophies and ideas. While someone else might offer a similar program in your niche, Signature Programs are unique to you, and imbued with key elements that can be scaled up or down, and used in many different ways.
8. Make goals visible and exciting! Goals easily become unmotivating when we create too many, or if we create goals that are not achievable. But they’re also unmotivating if they’re not tapped into our key motivators—the things that excite us! And whether it’s creating a goal or vision board that sits in the office or creating a one page plan, simply keeping goals visible can be an important part of the motivation to succeed.
9. Create a plan and execute. There’s a project management adage which says that ten minutes of planning can avoid two hours of unfocused efforts. Who could help you make the plan? Who could help hold you accountable? Who will help you get over the hurdles when they show up?
10. Collaboration is a key skill set for coaches. We not only partner with our clients, but we also collaborate with other businesses and practitioners. But it’s important not to collaborate ‘just to collaborate’. In fact, it’s key to be clear on WHY you are collaborating. Whether it’s creating a joint venture for marketing or co-leading a group or team coaching session, two key questions to ask are:
    • What’s important about doing this together?
    • What’s your WHY around collaboration—individually and collectively?
11. Get a mentor! Whether it’s working with a mentor coach for your certification or credential, or finding a mentor to help you grow your business to the next stage, mentors provide invaluable feedback and insights you may not get in other places. Questions to consider are:
    • What do I want to get out of the mentoring relationship? (eg. to build skills, get questions answered, industry insights, success stories)
    • What could I bring to the mentoring relationship?
    • What are my expectations?
12. Get comfortable with the technology you use: While working virtually is not for all coaches, it’s likely that you may be working with some clients virtually—never being within touching distance. Becoming proficient and comfortable with the technologies you use creates the foundation of your professionalism.

Wrap-up

Growing a business is not just a one-off, one month event. It’s an ongoing focus, impacting all aspects of our world. We are in the driver’s seat to create what we want. Enjoy the journey!

Liked these tips to grow your coaching business? Try the articles they came from (all by Jennifer):

1. 5 Systems at the Heart of Growing a Sustainable Coaching Business
2. Grow Your Remote Coaching Business with these 15 Mind-Sets & Practices
3. 9 Ways to Market Your Workshop or Group Coaching Program
4. The Magic Ingredient for Successful Goal Setting
5. 5 Areas You Need to Consider for Successful Collaborations (with Questions)
6. Successful Mentoring Relationships: 5 Key Ingredients
7. Create Your Own Signature Program! What, Why & How to Get Started