How to Start a Coaching Business in 11 Steps

Introduction

Starting any business endeavor can be incredibly overwhelming. If you’ve decided you want to start a coaching business, you likely have the expertise needed to serve your customers. However, that is only the minimum requirement for starting a coaching business. There are so many elements to consider beyond actual service delivery. Below I have listed the necessary steps for how to start a coaching business. These steps don’t have to be followed in the exact order, but it is a logical process that can help you save time, stay on track, and maintain focus on the right piece at the right time.

While this is specific to coaching, most of this applies to other businesses as well – especially private practice therapy or counseling. 

How to Start a Coaching Business, Step by Step 

Step 1: Understand your Motivation for Starting a Business

There are so many reasons people decide they want to build a coaching business. You might be motivated by money, work-life balance, or freedom, just to name a few common responses to this.

What made you decide you want to take the leap? 

What are your goals?

How does success look to you?

It’s important to really think through this information, as it is foundational to your path forward and how you identify key details about your company.

Step 2: Identify the Problem You will Solve

You already know you want to start a coaching business. But you need to get more specific than that. What do you want to be known for? How do you want to specialize? How you will be different from your competition? Niche down as small as you can and you can build from there. You can – and very likely will – go broader as time goes on, but for your planning purposes start with one main thing, and at most, document what else you might want to do. For example, perhaps you want to help experienced professionals seeking new roles hone their interviewing skills. 

Consider what problem you want to solve most and who you want to help solve this problem.

Step 3: Understand your Audience

Knowing your target customer is foundational to making your business successful. You need to know who you will serve so that you can begin to understand their needs, goals, pain points, and how to reach them, among other things.

Who needs help with your area of expertise?

Step 4: Conduct Market Research

Conduct market research to make sure you understand the viability of your idea. You need to know the problem you want to solve is one that people will pay for. You’ll want to ensure there is enough demand that you can find customers.  It’s also important to get an idea of how much will you be able to charge based on the going rates. This doesn’t need to be a comprehensive competitive research exercise. You do need to take time to understand these key points as you get started though.

Step 5: Understand your Costs

You will want to have a solid understanding of how much it will cost you to run your business, how much you need to break even, and what it will take to be profitable. While you can get started with a small budget, especially if you are running a remote coaching practice, there are still a number of expenses that can add up quickly. Don’t forget about tax, insurance, and licensure/certification expenses, in addition to any consultant fees you anticipate (such as a lawyer). You will also want to open a business account to keep these expenses separate from personal expenses.

Step 6: Write a Business Plan

A business plan can be a one-page document that speaks about your company at a high level. It’s not comprehensive enough to be a complete launch plan, but it contains high-level information that you can refer back to to keep you focused.

Business plan templates come in many formats. You may notice some of them will have varying sections. I’ve listed below the 5 key sections to incorporate. Within each section, I have listed examples of what you may include, but please include whatever is most relevant to you.

1. Company details

• Vision
• Mission

Every decision you make for your business should be grounded by your vision and mission, so these are important to consider.

2. Customer

• Target audience
• The problem you will solve

Take time to write out what you know about your future customers and how you can help them. It’s easy to get distracted by similar problems or audiences, taking you off track from your main objective.

3. Market

• Competitor analysis
• How you are different from your competition

4. Finance

• Funding you need and where it will come from
• Operational Costs
• How you will make money

5. Objectives

• Goals
• Milestones
• Actions for reaching milestones

Include your top goals and key milestones you need to hit. These can be related to both pre and post-launch activities. Goals, milestones, and activities to reach these will be key to keep you on track with the myriad of activities you’ll be doing to start your coaching business.

You can create entire documents on each of these sections for more comprehensive planning and success. Those are not necessarily all required to launch, and all of the documents should be considered living documents that change over time as you learn more and evolve your business.

Step 7: Identify how and where you will deliver your services

Will you be offering services remotely and in person? Do you need to secure an office space or supplies? Make a plan for taking care of this important piece. Even if you will be delivering services remotely, your workspace matters and needs to be an environment conducive to running a professional business. 

Step 8: Determine Pricing & Packaging

Identify how much you will charge and how you will take payment. Do you plan to offer services on a one-off basis or provide a discount for buying several sessions? Will you offer bulk rates, group rates, subscriptions, or sliding scale rates? You may choose to give potential clients a free consultation. This is a great way to get people in the door and gain insights if you are just getting started and have no clients.

In addition, you need to have a plan and policy in place for what to do if people fail to pay or ask for refunds.

Step 9: Fulfill Legal, Regulatory, Certification and Licensure Obligations

Legal and regulatory obligations for owning a business can vary by state, so be sure to review requirements specific to your geographic location as you register your business.

As far as certifications and licensure, staying up to date will be important if it is something you are including in your marketing materials or people believe they are getting from you. 

Step 10: Operationalize your Business

You will need to procure, learn, and set up systems necessary for delivering your services end-to-end. This might include software for appointment scheduling, communicating with clients, taking payment, and keeping records, just to name a few things.

Starting a coaching business will also likely require a number of policies and forms beyond what has already been mentioned. For example, you may need policies around canceling appointments or other disclosures and terms you want your clients to be aware of. In addition, you may need to develop intake forms or other materials you use before, during, or after client appointments.

Optional but important: set up a mechanism for testimonials. You’ll want to get feedback from clients to build credibility and trust so that you can gain new customers quickly.

Step 11: Create Marketing Materials

Marketing materials include anything that someone could use to help them determine whether or not they wish to use your services, including but not limited to the following: your logo, business cards, social media pages, and website. Your marketing materials should reflect your brand and the type of image you want to convey. 

Conclusion

It can be difficult to know how to start a coaching business because there are so many steps involved. The 11 steps provided here will give you a starting point for where to focus, so you can begin to gain traction as quickly as possible. 

Finding difficulty managing everything on your own? Check out these free tools you can use to improve efficiency here.