OPINION: THE REAL BUSINESS OF COACHING – DEVELOPING STRATEGIC FOCUS

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Thomas Chalmers and Russell Borland Have you got a business strategy in place? Make sure it covers the interplay of your target market and the services you offer within it   One of the key things to consider when building your coaching business is your strategic focus. This can be driven, for the most part, by the intersection of: The market you are seeking to target, ie, the type of clients you wish to work with and where they are The services you offer clients in your target market.   Their interplay will influence the number of potential sales opportunities: […]

THE REAL BUSINESS OF COACHING: THE REAL ‘OPEN SESAME’

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Questions ultimately speak louder than qualifications say Thomas Chalmers and Russell Borland, our latest hosts in the business of coaching column   When Russell and I were introduced to one another, it transpired that we were each coaching in the financial services sector, mostly in London, although we both live in central Scotland. Same sector, similar family values, a shared interest in people but completely different coaching qualifications and career paths.   In the beginning we both assumed that our joint business experience, coaching qualifications and institutional memberships were the ‘open sesame’ to the marketplace. But we were wrong. We’ve found […]

THE REAL BUSINESS OF COACHING: WE ARE LEADING FIGURES

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Are you qualified as a coach but struggling to generate clients? Thomas Chalmers and Russell Borland remember how that used to feel   We’ve been following Ginny Baillie’s column, The Real Business of Coaching, with great interest and are honoured to grasp the baton from Ginny. We’re of a similar view that it’s often difficult to find best practice advice on business development in the coaching world. Many coach training programmes give very little or no guidance on what it takes to grow a financially viable coaching practice. As many of us will know, stepping out into the self-employed arena […]

THE REAL BUSINESS OF COACHING: TAKING CARE OF OUR OWN

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By Ginny Baillie I started writing this business column as a result of something I noticed in 2015. That summer I had been to several coaching conferences. Of the 50 or so keynotes, breakouts and workshops I could have attended, not one was concerned with the business of being a coach. Fast-forward to autumn 2018 and the picture has improved a little. The same conferences have had panel discussions, talked about business models and covered business topics in specific sessions. Coaches have been getting into groups to work on their businesses, to support each other, to stretch so their businesses […]

OPINION: THE REAL BUSINESS OF COACHING – THE KEY TO YOUR SUCCESS

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How do you make sure your ideas ‘travel’ inside global organisations when the links are often so fragile? Follow the lines of influence, says Ginny Baillie Let’s say you want to spread your ideas in a company. You’ve done great work and it’s time to build on that and let it ‘travel’ into the organisation. I suggest there are several lines of influence to navigate. Here’s what those lines might look like: The person you know very well who ‘buys’ you (let’s call him Bob) The people you have delivered to/partnered with (let’s call them collectively, Jane) The people around […]

THE REAL BUSINESS OF COACHING: THE LANDSCAPE OF WHAT I DO

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As an experienced independent coach, is it increasingly hard to find words for what you do? Is it perhaps time to drop the word ‘coach’? asks Ginny Baillie What are you doing that’s no longer well described by ‘coaching’? And how would identifying that help you? I was avoiding calls from my friend Rachel – she kept banging on about ‘benefits’ not ‘features’ in my business marketing. It was driving me nuts, mainly because she was right. I found I could no longer talk easily about what I do. This is because it’s morphed into something much wider than purely […]

THE REAL BUSINESS OF COACHING: ALL ABOUT THE MONEY

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Can you imagine feeling easy and confident stating your fees? Without money confidence fees are a nightmare. Get it right though, and you earn your worth Ginny Baillie Have you ever had that thing where you are talking to a potential new client on the phone and you start analysing their ability to pay your fees? Or is that just me? I have slid all over the place in what I am going to charge while on the chemistry call. It’s exhausting and not in service of the potential client. I end up either sounding unconfident of my value, undercharging […]

THE REAL BUSINESS OF COACHING: NON-TANGIBLE ASSETS

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Development programmes are just as effective as face-to-face when delivered on a virtual platform. Follow these rules for a successful transition online Ginny Baillie What if I said you could be running a one-day virtual workshop from your office: eight hours online with 10 people all paying the same for your face-to-face expertise – and they are all delighted with the result? What if I said you could deliver your coaching programmes virtually, rather than the companies you work for flying everyone in for two days – and still get rave reviews? You’ll notice I emphasis the response of the […]

THE REAL BUSINESS OF COACHING: SEEKING OUT EXPANSION

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The organisations you work with are more than just the clients you see. Make sure you take a closer look across the business for where you can serve   One of the reasons I’ve done lots of associate work in the past is that I don’t like having to look after lots of relationships that may come to something over the years. I know people who love doing that, and I’d rather work for them than do it myself. However, it’s quite different when I know the people, care about them and am already doing business with them. A blind spot […]

THE REAL BUSINESS OF COACHING: NICHE NICHING YOUR BUSINESS

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With so many coaches in the market, how can you make sure clients pick you? Classifying your business may be the genius move you’ve been looking for By Ginny Baillie You are in a bookshop. You’ve got a bit of time, but you don’t know what you are looking for. You scan the shelves, and the classifications, but nothing jumps out. You go to the tables, that’s a bit easier, you’ve got more visuals, more to go on, but still there’s a lot. So you start looking at the in-house reviews and pick something that’s in tune with what you […]