How To Start A Coaching Business
How do you start a coaching business? You've done the training, got the qualification and now you need to get business without spending a fortune on advertising and marketing. Here's my experience.
A lot of the business that I've won has been through word of mouth. In other words, one satisfied client has told a business contact about the good work that I've done. So the questions that I asked myself were:-
1. How do I get that 1st client?
2. How can I better use word of mouth?
I dealt with the first point by offering my services for free to known contacts in exchange for a testimonial. This allowed me to not only get those all important testimonials about how good my services were but it also gave me the opportunity to hone my skills in a true commercial environment without my mind continually asking me whether I was doing a good job and giving value for money.
I also offered my services through “Business Angels”, a consortium of successful business entrepreneurs who want to give something back to the “new generation” of business people.
The third strand to really get my business off the ground was to join a couple of business networking groups. In this way I could build up relationships with my fellow networkers and work with each of them to generate referrals for each other. I found this to be a really powerful way to build relationships and develop that all important trust without spending a fortune.
To find networking events near you, use the following links to external sites that offer a directory of business networking groups.
Networking Events - Open Networking provides a search by county so you can easily find a business networking event near you.
You can of course use other tools such as direct mail and social media but I found direct mail to be expensive and social media to be time consuming and in both instances with little to show at the end of the day.
See Also:-
Professional Coaching Practice
Productivity Improvement Techniques
