To start your coaching business, you need 10 hours per week.
10 hours is enough time for the “coaching business four”:
- Networking and lead generation
- Scheduling discovery sessions
- Running discovery sessions
- Coaching paying clients
Can you imagine 10 hours per week doing those 4 things?
The fact is that most coaches won’t ever spend even 10 hours per week on their coaching business.
Why?
The TIME excuse.
Notice, I didn’t say ‘time’.
Time never stops a new coach from getting started.
It’s the EXCUSE that stops them.
How can a simple excuse stop so many well-intentioned coaches?
That excuse goes UNINVESTIGATED.
So instead of letting it stop YOU… investigate it…
- Where might you have a few hours in your weekly schedule?
- Where are you over-spending your time right now?
- How much leisure time could you forfeit?
If you don’t investigate your ‘time excuse’, you’ll have no clue how much time you can give to your business.
You’ll just know you’re busy…
…and you probably won’t even attempt to put in your 10 hours.
But with a little investigation, you can usually uncover 10 hours per week to grow your coaching business.
Got your 10 hours blocked? Preserved? Guarded?
Now divide up the time THIS WAY:
- 8 hours scheduling discovery sessions (generate leads and contact them)
- 2 hours delivering those discovery sessions
Spend 80% of your time talking to potential clients (and offering them discovery sessions).
Invest 20% of your time delivering discovery sessions (and inviting those people to enroll into paid coaching with you).
Every coach who does this consistently…
…gets paying clients as a result.
And, as you get more paying clients…
…you’ll be able to finance your transition to full time coach.
Get past the time excuse.
Invest the 10 hours consistently.
Invest the 10 hours consistently.”
Reap the rewards.
The only remaining issue?
Even coaches that get past their time excuse…
…still struggle with managing their time so they can maintain their 10 hour coaching week.
Let’s solve the most common struggles, one by one:
Getting too fancy, too fast
New coaches spend months crafting a detailed business plan, designing a perfect website, or pursuing several multi-year certifications.
All this fancy ‘todo’ doesn’t matter if you don’t have paying clients.
In fact, coaches sometimes use fancy projects…
…to avoid talking to people about coaching.
The problem is… those CONVERSATIONS are what really gets paying clients.
Why waste your time and money getting fancy if you don’t do what it takes to make your business work?
Why waste your time and money getting fancy if you don’t do what it takes to make your business work?”
You’re better off putting all that fancy stuff aside to deliver 100 discovery sessions…
…then, if you still want to ‘get fancy’, you’ll have enough paying clients to subsidize it.
Trying to please… everyone
Coaches give so much of their time to help other people…
…but this can get out of hand due to ‘people pleaser’ tendencies.
PLEASERS attract TAKERS.
PLEASERS attract TAKERS.”
PLEASERS attract USERS.
If you’re a target for the takers and users…
…they’ll ask you to do everything for them.
Work against these ‘pleaser’ tendencies by saying “no”.
PLEASERS attract USERS.”
Going “overtime” on coaching sessions
Going far over your allotted session time overwhelms your clients and fritters away your time.
Being too available
If every client hears “Call me whenever you need me.”…
…it’s possible that you’ll never get a free moment.
This ‘open door’ invitation shows those around you that you don’t value your time…
…so they don’t value it either.
Instead, set boundaries around how and when your clients can get access to your valuable time and energy.
Instead, set boundaries around how and when your clients can get access to your valuable time and energy.”
Scheduling coaching sessions too far apart
Most coaches schedule coaching sessions “whenever is convenient” for the client.
This causes HUGE time gaps between sessions…
…which makes it more tempting to go overtime…
…because you don’t have another session immediately after you finish.
This can also cause you to waste ENTIRE mornings, afternoons, or evenings on ONE SESSION…
…or WORSE, that one session CANCELS or RESCHEDULES at the last minute, and now that part of the day is a TOTAL LOSS.
Instead, schedule your sessions in back to back ‘clusters’.
You’ll finish sessions on time (because now you have to).
You’ll get through all your coaching for the week in one or two days (leaving the rest of the week free for productive business activities).
Beating yourself up
I’m constantly talking to coaches who beat themselves up mentally.
“I SHOULD have…”
“I’m so BAD at…”
“I COULD be so much further along…”
Stay away from judging yourself or name calling.
Don’t take your mistakes personally.
Don’t demean yourself.
Don’t take your mistakes personally.”
Beating yourself up wastes time (since there’s no upside).
Beating yourself up only bars you from spending time in the very area where you need to improve.
How?
Let’s say you’re not very confident in your Discovery Sessions…
…so you need to improve them.
But you beat yourself up about your bumbling Discovery Sessions.
NOW how are you feeling about running another Discovery Session?
Lousy.
So, either you’ll avoid Discovery Sessions completely…
…or you’ll delay and procrastinate running your Discovery Sessions to avoid more beatings.
All due to the self-imposed resistance you’ve created by beating yourself up.
Instead of beating yourself up in your weaker areas…
…ask yourself how you could improve, and intentionally focus on improving tomorrow.
Instead of beating yourself up in your weaker area…ask yourself how you could improve, and intentionally focus on improving tomorrow.“
Starting a coaching business is a romantic venture where you get to “do what you love.”
This “do what you love” mindset can delude you into thinking that you don’t need to make any sacrifices before you have a successful coaching business.
As the Dean of Master Coach University, Jeffrey Sooey says:
“The problem with doing what you love is that you may think you’ll never need to do what you HATE as well.”
Making a sacrifice breaks through the limitations of the ‘do what you love’ mindset.
It confirms that you’ve chosen to pursue your coaching business as a worthwhile reality…
…instead of just indulging in the fantasy.
So go ahead…
Sacrifice some leisure time.
Sacrifice some family time.
Sacrifice some ‘me time’.
Use that time for your coaching business.
If that sacrifice means something to you…
…you’ll be that much more committed to your coaching business.
Unfinished Project Perfectionism
A lot of coaches don’t complete projects in their coaching business because they are worried that it won’t be “good enough”.
Incomplete websites…
Incomplete videos, books, courses, etc….
Incomplete webinars…
…all cluttering up their life.
The time a coach spends on an unfinished project is worthless…
…until the project is FINISHED.
Instead, give yourself a solid deadline.
Don’t respect your own deadlines?
Make your deadline PUBLIC.
For instance: I work with a coach who publishes online courses. He has thousands of clients.
The first time he planned to sell an online course, he complained, “I just can’t get myself to make the time to build it!”
I coached, “Make a promise to your entire following…
…that the course will be ready for them in one month.”
Magically, the course was ready in a month.
That promise was all the pressure he needed to get the course finished.
Whatever work it takes to complete your project will take as much time as you give it (this is called Parkinson’s law).
Move your deadlines closer and the project gets done faster.
Over-learning
Coaches love to take courses…
…and learning is part of growing as a coach.
But learning can be a self soothing technique…
…an ‘escape mechanism’ that gets you off the hook for tougher actions.
Education can make you FEEL like you’re growing your coaching business… even when you aren’t.
Don’t use over-learning to avoid the challenging task in front of you.
Don’t use over-learning to avoid the challenging task in front of you.”
Once you’ve finished your primary coach education…
…limit learning to no more than one hour per day.
Fix these mistakes and plan your 10 hour coaching week.
10 hours a week is all you need.
Where would your life be in 3 months…
…after spending those 10 hours per week with NO EXCEPTIONS?
Where would your coaching business be?
How many more CLIENTS would you have?
How much more CASH FLOW and CONFIDENCE would you have?
How would that feel?
Who would you become (as a coach, as a business owner)?
What would that make possible in the future…
…for your coaching business?
…for your clients?
…for YOU?
I’ve never met a coach who wasn’t GLAD they put in their 10 hours.
The 10 hour coaching week is like soccer practice for a soccer player…
It’s the ‘TICKET in’ to playing the game.
I’ll be there with you…
…cheering you on for the win.
Kristoffer “10 is enough” Thompson
