Three More Reasons Why My Coaching Business is Successful PART 2

In an earlier post I shared three keys that have contributed to the success of my coaching business over the years. I’d like to supplement those keys with three more that have been incremental to business growth. I hope these will help you create a long-lasting and successful coaching business.

Reason #1: Understand sales and marketing and use it effectively.

I’m fortunate to have a deep background in sales and marketing. I started my first business when I was 15 years old, selling bicycle parts to friends in the rural town in Southern Arizona where I grew up. I also had a newspaper delivery business, and back then the people who delivered newspapers were required to canvas their neighborhoods and sell the paper. So, I learned how to sell door-to-door at a very young age.

Since then, I’ve had many sales jobs and have been very successful at some and not so successful in others. But all along the way I’ve learned a lot. I have a marketing degree from Arizona State University, so I have the formal education to better understand how to market myself and my business. I taught business classes at Skyline College in San Bruno, California, for five years, and I also taught social media as part of an extended learning program at San Francisco State University.

Suffice to say, I understand sales and marketing pretty well. Early on, I realized I needed to apply sales and marketing know-how to grow my business instead of just focusing on being a great coach. While this last item is extremely important, if you don’t first understand you’re running a sales and marketing business that offers coaching, training, facilitation, and assessments, you might have the wrong mindset around what it takes to make your business successful.

I’ve seen many coaches who were fantastic at coaching fail in business because they were poor at sales and marketing. So, if you need a better understanding of sales and marketing, my advice is to get trained, get educated, read books, and take courses to become better in the crucial skills that support your practice. And one note of caution, don’t totally rely on other people to do sales and marketing for you. Because coaching, training, and facilitation are closely linked to your style and personal approach, you’re most likely going to be the best person for marketing and selling your services. If you choose to get help in these areas, try to get involved as much as possible rather than just turning it over to an agency.

Reason #2: Stay in tune with trends.

Ask yourself: “What do I see as the growing trends in coaching, training, facilitation, and assessments?” After building a list, think about joining those trends and riding them because that will likely support the success of your business for years.

Early on in my business, I realized that to differentiate myself in the coaching profession, I needed to be formally trained, certified, and credentialed. So, I did all that. I went through the Center for Executive Coaching program, which is the one I now offer, and became certified. Then I continued on and became credentialed with the International Coaching Federation. I’m currently at the PCC level and eventually want to work my way towards the MCC level to distinguish myself further from coaches who are not certified or credentialed or who are certified or credentialed at lower levels. Another trend I see happening in the industry is team coaching, and that’s why I’m now getting certified as a team coach.

Reason #3: Create your own content that you own and can sell.

Although I’ve invested heavily in great content from the Center for Executive Coaching and other resources, I’ve also taken the initiative to create my own content. I’ve created marketing presentations, sales presentations, and time management presentations. I’ve given lots of presentations that were entirely my own content, and I’ve created original training courses too. I’ve released my first on-demand sales training program in the Fall of 2022.

The best way to separate yourself in the marketplace is to create content or give presentations that are uniquely yours. It will be hard for other coaches to replicate your practice because they don’t have the same material. You have significant experiences and wisdom that you can infuse your own material with, so push yourself to do it. Maybe your early efforts won’t be stellar, but if you continue to push yourself to create better videos, better blog posts, better podcasts, better whatever it is, the quality of your original content will improve.

These are three more reasons why my business has been more successful than many other coaching businesses since launching in 2008. I hope that these reasons, along with the first set of reasons in my other post, will help you build a long-lasting and successful coaching business.

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I hope one or more of these keys has helped awaken something in you that will pave the way towards a more successful coaching practice. If you’d like to learn from me directly, then check out the enrollment options page and set up a meeting with me if you have any questions about any of your options.

Have you read part 1 yet? Read it here!

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