Are you a coach who is hesitant to put yourself out there?
Do you promise yourself that you are going to get started taking clients just as soon as some crucial piece falls into place or you complete some particular training or earn a certain degree?
Right now, you are the star of the show on opening night. The curtain has gone up. It is a packed house and they are all hushed, waiting for you to enter.
The spotlight is on and focused, but you stand, poised, lingering in the wings, your foot raised to stride onstage. But there is something stopping you. Something keeping you back from stepping into the spotlight and shining for all of the world to see like the star and world changer that you are!
Starting a coaching business can be scary, and hard. One of the most challenging aspects can be just gathering the courage to begin.
Maybe it seems like you aren’t ready yet. Perhaps you are unsure of your specific niche or confused about who your ideal client is. Maybe you want everything to be perfect before you take the plunge. Or maybe there is a lack of confidence in your ability or whether this is right for you.
Whatever it may be that is holding you back, it is time to shake it off, listen to your inner calling and get moving.
Take action.
Don’t wait for a lightbulb moment. Oftentimes the lightbulb moments come when you are taking action. Clarity comes as the action starts to open doors.
Vanessa Talbot, professional profile builder for coaches and change makers and creator of the signature program “Step into the Spotlight” advises, “Don’t wait for all your ducks to line up!”
She goes on to say of her own experience starting out in the coaching business, “I didn’t wait to be perfect, I wasn’t even certified. I didn’t wait for everything to be perfect, I just took action from the very beginning.”
And consequently, Vanessa’s coaching business has evolved to what it is today as she started to get feedback from her clients and as she understood what her strengths and passion was and what energised her by taking action.
Her business today is somewhat different from what she started doing, although she recognizes every step she took supported her to create her current and previous success and will set her up for the future. Some offerings she stopped doing, some offerings Some offerings Vanessa stopped, other offerings she has continued to do and new offerings have been developed based on feedback in its various forms: her client’s feedback; her own energy, emotions, thoughts; and the financial success of her products and services.
Vanessa advises to begin with, start spending time and building connections with the groups of people you believe will be your niche or who you want to work with or who you have a connection with.
Get to know your audience inside and out. Potentially make yourself a public figure and position yourself as an expert in your field. When you do this, you become a lighthouse, a beacon, and instead of spending time chasing down and hunting for clientele they will find you.
Ideally, you need to be able to answer the following questions about your target audience:
• What are their challenges?
• What are their concerns?
• What do their triumphs look like?
Here are some ways to demonstrate you are knowledgeable in your potential niche:
• Write a book
• Write a blog
• Do Facebook lives
• Become active in your audience’s hangout places on social media such as a dedicated Facebook page or Linked In group, or in person at networking events.
Speak to their hopes and dreams, their challenges, their lives, their goals. And create ways to spend time with them, for example:
• Form a closed Facebook group
• Get involved in mentoring
• Consider target market research
And, even if you are unsure of your niche, just start taking action and eventually your niche will come into focus for you.
The clientele that you attract will show you who your target niche really is. It may be that who you start out imagining as your ideal client is really the opposite of the kind of client that you will end up attracting.
Vanessa recounts that her first clientele was almost entirely made up of authors. Now she works exclusively with coaches, experts, and changemakers.
The most important thing to do is to take action. Put a foot forward, even if it is not the perfect step. Action creates momentum, and in this case, any step forward is the right step forward.
So go ahead, take a deep breath, and step out onto that stage! Honour the calling that you have to lead the way and step up to do it!
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