Being a business coach and helping clients see visible success has its own sets of challenges. But when you add in all the responsibilities and challenges that come with running your own business, doesn’t it sound like “double trouble” looming on the horizon? And that’s not all! With other factors at play—such as transition from offline to online, technological advancement, the pandemic, etc.— building and successfully running a coaching business has become even more difficult.
The crux of the matter is that being a business coach handling your own coaching business can feel like having too much on your plate. We’re here to acknowledge and tell you how you can deal with it!
In this blog post, we talk about some of the biggest challenges of business coaches and how to overcome the same.
5 challenges that every business coach should overcome
Building a successful career as a business coach isn’t a cake walk. There will be challenges and roadblocks that may deter you from achieving your desired goal. However, know that most successful business coaches have faced these challenges and overcome them.
5 challenges a business coach usually faces are:
1. Finding the right platform to manage the business
When it comes to online coaching platforms in the market, you are spoilt for choice. Every option comes with its own bells and whistles – think communication tools like SMS, video and group coaching capabilities; content sharing experience through videos, PDFs, etc.; admin tools like payment scheduler, and so on. While some come with specialized and focused features, others provide you with complete solutions; some are tailormade for small coaching businesses, others cater only to group coaching. It is critical to determine your goals, target audience, business size, technology required, etc. before making the right choice. Opt for a platform that gives you the perfect kickstart you need for your coaching business but will stay with you as you grow too.
Are you looking for a coaching platform that will give your business the required boost?
At Simply.Coach, we provide the necessary coaching tools all in one place.
2. Figuring out the right business strategy
To build a remarkable career as a business coach and to stand out in an extremely crowded market, you also need to have a fool-proof business strategy in place. On the face of it, coming up with a proper business strategy may sound simple—you just have to identify your goal and map out an action plan. But in reality, strategizing a business plan is absolutely not simple. Coming up with a smart marketing plan is one of the biggest challenges of business coaches, while for others, pricing their services could be intimidating. However, like most successful business coaches, if you go in with some direction and plan it step by step, you’ll have half the work done.
To get well on your way to a successful business strategy, use these 5 steps to get your basics in place:
Step 1: Create a to-the-point mission statement
Step2: Come up with all the details of your business— the type of coaching services, your coaching niche or sub-niche if any, etc.
Step3: Figure out your target audience—know your buyer persona well, their age, gender, demographics, what business they are into, etc. Once you have defined your ideal client, create a proper marketing strategy to attract as many potential clients as possible.
Step 4: Jot down your offerings in detail. It should come with materials and resources you are offering and also your pricing plans.
Step 5: Identify your goal. Pen down where you see yourself as a business coach in a 6-month time or after a year. Track your progress so that you don’t go off-track.
Once you have this in place, look at marketing & sales, executional processes, technology, contracts & invoicing.
3. Struggling to get clients
Clients are at the heart of any coaching business. Whether you are a rookie or a seasoned business coach, getting clients—online or offline—can be tricky. Even with a clear picture of the ideal client, one of the biggest challenges of business coaches is to find those ideal clients and get them onboarded. Afterall, you will not bump into your ideal clients by chance. It requires a fine balance between marketing your services and conduct coaching sessions—the one thing that you would like to be focusing on the most.
The trick lies in the quality of time spent in marketing your business rather than the quantity. Even a little time out of your busy schedule can be utilized smartly to draw new clients. Social media could be your magic wand. Target platforms frequented by professionals—such as LinkedIn—to market your services. Engage in value-based conversation and post content relevant to your niche on specific social media channels. Another great way to get visibility among new clients are referrals and testimonials. Once you have a website, do optimize it for search engines so you can pull in high-quality leads looking for business coaching services like yours. When you’re ready for it, use paid advertising to draw in high-volume leads.
4. Dealing with clients’ time crunch and lack of focus
Business entrepreneurs, leaders and executives are very busy white-collar workers. Hence, the greatest challenge of a business coach is that his/her clients have no time to spare. However, this can be solved to a certain extent with the help of the “Power of 3×5” approach. Ask your clients to set aside 5 minutes each to go through your prescribed content, think about its importance and impact, and come up with a time-bound action plan – a handy solution for your busy clients.
Another glaring problem with clients is their lack of focus. A business coach’s clients are hustling all the time and multi-tasking constantly. Hence, it’s very easy for them to lose focus on a goal or while in a coaching session. To overcome this challenge, you may ask your client to focus on an achievable target with the most impact or jot down a few of the most concerning issues and deal with them one at a time.
5. Keeping yourself updated with new technology
As we’ve already mentioned, the world of coaching has now gone digital. More and more business coaches are opting for online mode of coaching. However, technology is advancing at a pace that’s almost unimaginable. Keeping up with the advanced technology is one of today’s greatest challenges that every business coach faces.
But it’s very important to overcome the fear of adapting to new technologies as there’s no alternative but to keep up with the ways of the world if you want to succeed. Working with the new technology brings you closer to a global audience and offers scope to widen your client base. Technology helps enhance client experience and engagement, which in turn makes you feel confident about yourself and your services. It also helps save time running the business, so you can optimize time-consuming daily processes and spend that time coaching. There are a lot of easy-to-use automation software available in the market for business coaches. Many of these online tools require minimum technical know-how but halve the daily chores of a business coach.
Bottomline
Challenges are a part and parcel of each and every profession. There are challenges that are common to all coaches and then there are challenges that are specific to a business coach. However, the matter of the fact remains the same that “smooth seas do not make skillful sailors”. We hope this blog post leaves you better prepared for what to expect!
Sources
Wisernotify, Leaderhouse, Tricres, Smh
FAQs
1. How important is it for a business coach to continue learning?
In order to grow as a business coach and also scale your business it is imperative to keep yourself updated in your area of expertise at all the times. Honing your skills from time to time not just helps you build your reputation, but also helps keep it intact. It’s crucial to remain abreast of niche-specific information and relevant subject matter.
2. How can online tools help a business coach overcome challenges up to a certain extent?
As a busy business coach, it’s expected that you have too much on your plate and very little time and bandwidth to tackle every demand. Online coaching tools are a great way to deal with the biggest challenge a business coach faces — lack of time. There are multiple online tools available in the market that automate a lot of the tasks relevant to a coaching business. Proper utilization of these tools helps improve client communication, improves the quality of coaching sessions and coaching outcomes, and helps the business grow at a faster rate.
About Simply.Coach
Simply.Coach is an enterprise-grade coaching software designed to be used by individual coaches and coaching businesses. Trusted by ICF-accredited and EMCC-credentialed coaches worldwide, Simply.Coach is on a mission to elevate the experience and process of coaching with technology-led tools and solutions.
Content Specialist @Simply.Coach
Jayashree Mukherjee is a content specialist by day and a content junkie (on OTT) by night. Passionate about traveling, street food and overturning the underuse of em dashes — she would have been a globe-trotter if she hadn’t been so lazy.
