{"id":29171,"date":"2016-10-13T16:00:39","date_gmt":"2016-10-13T20:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coachingfederation.org\/blog\/3-essential-things-to-know-before-setting-up-a-coaching-practice\/"},"modified":"2016-10-13T16:00:39","modified_gmt":"2016-10-13T20:00:39","slug":"3-essential-things-to-know-before-setting-up-a-coaching-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coachingfederation.org\/blog\/3-essential-things-to-know-before-setting-up-a-coaching-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Essential Things You Need to Do Before Setting Up Your Coaching Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

All too often, new coaches dive into setting up a new practice head first but soon find themselves sinking rather than swimming! Here are three essential things that you need to do before setting up your coaching practice.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is good old-fashioned common sense, but if you do these three things, you\u2019ll set yourself up with strong foundations for a profitable and sustainable coaching practice.<\/p>\n

1. Be Your Own Coach<\/h4>\n

I trained with CoachU, and a big part of their curriculum is \u201cPersonal Foundation.\u201d\u00a0 There\u2019s a reason for this:\u00a0 People buy people and your future clients will be buying YOU.\u00a0 Forgive me for stating the obvious, but you are the product.\u00a0 Sure, clients want the solutions we offer. But they also need to be convinced that their coach walks their talk.<\/p>\n

So you need to work on your own \u201cpersonal foundation.\u201d Be your own coach, every single day.\u00a0 Do all the things you\u2019d encourage your clients to do:<\/p>\n

Stretch outside your comfort zone, build your resilience, be kind to yourself, focus on the present, create and assess your goals. Practice all the good stuff you will be helping your clients with.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean you have to create the perfect life before you set up your practice. It\u2019s about practicing what you preach.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll be able to sell your coaching services with very little effort if you believe in what you\u2019re selling, and the best way to believe is to be a walking advert for the benefits of coaching!<\/p>\n

2. Keep Your Day Job\u2014or Find a Transition Job<\/h4>\n

If you want to attract clients, then you need to put out the right energy.\u00a0 \u00a0So if you\u2019re desperate for your next client because you haven\u2019t paid the rent or you\u2019re living on credit, you\u2019re not going to be able to serve them authentically or with integrity.<\/p>\n

Make sure you have some way of covering your living expenses while you are in the pre or early stages of practice building. It is so much easier to attract clients when you are not desperate for them!<\/p>\n

Back in 2003, when I was finishing my coach training, I took a part-time job that enabled me to bring in enough income to cover the bills and pay for half a day childcare for my 6-month-old son. This enabled me to spend half a day a week to work on my fledgling coaching practice. I set a \u201ctipping point\u201d goal: I decided that, when I earned \u00a3450 per month from coaching, I would hand in my notice and quit my part-time job to set my practice up \u201cproperly.\u201d<\/p>\n

While that \u00a3450 sum wasn\u2019t enough to cover the bills, it was a figure that made me feel confident<\/em> about the viability of my coaching practice. If I could earn \u00a3450 from coaching, then I could earn \u00a3900 and so on.<\/p>\n

I always recommend some kind of sliding transition, if you can.\u00a0 It might be that you are working full time, so I appreciate that you might not have the option to work part time.\u00a0 In this case, you might need to coach clients during the evenings or weekends. Or, you quit your job for a part-time role.<\/p>\n

Your tipping point sum is the amount of coaching income that gives you<\/em> the confidence to make the leap into full-time coaching. It is personal to you, and it\u2019s not set in stone.<\/p>\n

3. Do Your Sums<\/h4>\n

So many of my new coach clients say they would love to become a coach, but they don\u2019t know how to bridge the financial gap between employment and a new coaching practice. \u00a0Understandably, they are concerned at the drop in income from their current salary to setting up a new business.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When I ask them how much money they need each month to pay the bills and put food on the table, the most common reply is:<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know\u2014I guess I should figure this out!\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, you should!<\/p>\n

Get those bank statements out and start looking at what you spend. Find out exactly how much money you need to make the transition from employment to coaching practice.<\/p>\n

When you know these figures, then you can get creative with potential ways forward.\u00a0 Once you\u2019ve got your figures in black and white, start coaching yourself! Ask yourself questions to test your commitment to setting up a practice and to tap into your creativity. Here are a few ideas:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • What would I be willing to cut back on?<\/li>\n
  • What do I need to save as a buffer while I\u2019m building up my practice?<\/li>\n
  • How else could I make this transition?<\/li>\n
  • How much do I want this? Really?<\/li>\n
  • If I knew I\u2019d have to live on 50 percent less, would I still want to be a coach?<\/li>\n
  • If I knew it was going to take me 10 years, would I still want to be a coach?<\/li>\n
  • What time scales am I looking at to make the transition to coaching?<\/li>\n
  • What are the costs associated with my current job that I might be able to eliminate when I\u2019m working from home as a coach?<\/li>\n
  • What other ways could I build my practice without impacting my income?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Setting up a coaching practice is no different from starting any business: You have to be determined, resilient and willing to work hard.\u00a0 You need to know your figures, do your due diligence and be creative as you grow your business.<\/p>\n

    Take a step back, approach this positively and practically\u2014and you\u2019ll be swimming, not sinking, once you dive in to your brand new coaching practice!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    All too often, new coaches dive into setting up a new practice…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12361,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"Setting Up a Coaching Business: 3 Things You Need Before Starting","_seopress_titles_desc":"Before setting up your coaching practice. learn these 3 tips to make sure your successful. Read the ICF blog for more coaching insights.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"audience-type":[],"display-option":[],"post-type":[128],"topic":[99,64],"_person-tax":[2316],"class_list":{"0":"post-29171","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"post-type-blog","8":"topic-building-a-successful-coaching-business","9":"topic-business-development","10":"_person-tax-2316","11":"not-partnership-post","15":"_person-tax-28231","16":"has-featured-image"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coachingfederation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coachingfederation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coachingfederation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coachingfederation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coachingfederation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coachingfederation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coachingfederation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coachingfederation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"audience-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coachingfederation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/audience-type?post=29171"},{"taxonomy":"display-option","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coachingfederation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/display-option?post=29171"},{"taxonomy":"post-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coachingfederation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-type?post=29171"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coachingfederation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=29171"},{"taxonomy":"_person-tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coachingfederation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_person-tax?post=29171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}