January 11, 2022
Did you spend last year trying every single marketing hack out there but they just didn't work? So many coaches fall for the trap of replicating what everyone else is doing when the real key to growing a coaching business is finding what is unique to...
Did you spend last year trying every single marketing hack out there but they just didn't work? So many coaches fall for the trap of replicating what everyone else is doing when the real key to growing a coaching business is finding what is unique to you.
As we start the new year, many new or seasoned coaches might wonder how to really take their coaching career to the next level and create the life and business of their dreams. If this is you, dive deep into this value-packed episode with us to get all the tools and insights, and start applying them right away in your practice.
In today's episode, Coach Ajit reveals the 5 proven principles you need to follow to really grow your coaching business, no matter what your coaching niche is. Take time to reflect on the questions and exercises provided, so you can put these strategies into action and start growing your coaching business.
If you’re ready to get started at full speed, we’re offering our highly rated program “Start Your Coaching Business” on scholarship to help you launch your practice in just 21 days. Find out more about this offer.
Key Insights:
Coach Ajit (00:00):
You are listening to Master Coaching with Ajit podcast that inspires coaches to impact the lives of their clients more meaningfully. I am Coach Ajit and I'm known for coaching high performers, entrepreneurs, and leaders. I'm also a serial entrepreneur and author of many books. On this podcast, I am answering your burning questions. I'm also demonstrating and deconstructing behind the scenes coaching sessions.
Coach Ajit (00:35):
And today we are discussing five principles that you need to follow to grow your coaching business. If in 2022, 1 of your goals is to increase the revenue that you have in your business, increase the amount of people that you impact with your coaching business, this episode is for you. One of the key factors that I've found in growing my own life, coaching business, and my own business around coaching is that growing a business has a lot to do with yes, business tactics and business strategies, but there are some underlying principles that if they are not in place, no business strategy and no business playbook is gonna work for you. Let me ask you something. How many times have you gone ahead and bought a business course for your life coaching business and tried the strategies, implemented them to some degree and they didn't work for you?
Coach Ajit (01:24):
You've tried a business strategy and you're like, yeah, I tried it. But you know, it worked for that gal and it worked for that guy, but why did it not work for me? It seems like they have so many testimonials. Why is it not working? Well? That is where these underlying principles that are actually way more important than any other business strategy is so crucial. Let me give you these principles and also give you some empowering questions that may help you rethink about how you're thinking about growing your coaching business. Alright, let's get started. The first thing that is very important to grow your coaching business is to design your coaching business, to fit your ambitions and your needs. The most common mistake that we do as human beings is that we look at our lives in comparison to somebody else. It's an unconscious thing we have always wanted and have done that because that's how we stayed alive.
Coach Ajit (02:16):
That's how we learned about what to do in society is by watching other people. That's how we learn as kids. But what happens because of this analogical thinking or comparative thinking from somebody else is we forget our individuality. We forget that we are. While we learn from others, we are a unique being, which means anything that works for somebody else may or may not work for us because of nuances that are so unique to us. You see, when you are creating a business plan based on somebody else's suggestion, when you are creating a business strategy, based on somebody else's suggestion, without considering yourself and your ambitions, you unconsciously created resistance in your body and in your actions. This is why when you learn from somebody else and you try to implement in your business, you very often don't actually follow through in the consistent way that you ideally should.
Coach Ajit (03:09):
If you wanted to create the outcomes that you wanted to, this is why sometimes we find ourselves in a place where we say I've invested so much on all these different business courses. I have learned so much, but for some reason, even when I know I should implement them, I don't implement the ideas or I give up on those ideas or I feel everybody's just selling me something. Nobody's giving me a real answer. None of that is true. The reason these ideas don't work for you. The reason why you don't follow through is because when you listen to a coach or a trainer, you heard them in a way where you thought you have to do step by step. Exactly. As they say to replicate their success, that's not how success works. You don't step by step, follow someone. You find your authentic self, you use their learning to educate yourself and then build on top of it.
Coach Ajit (03:56):
So you can maintain your authentic self, maintain your own ambition, maintain your own goals. And so you're never comparing as to where you are compared to somebody else's journey, but being more cognizant and aware of where your journey is. And that is the first principle of growing your coaching business. Growing your coaching business is not about how far you have come compared to somebody else growing your coaching business is about how far you want to go and have come in comparison to yourself. What is it that is authentic to you? What is it that is present to you? What is it that is really honest to you because when it's honest, you're going to take action. When it's honest, you're gonna create progress. When it's honest, you will be resilient. When it's honest, you will find success faster. I want you to ask yourself this question.
Coach Ajit (04:43):
What if I could create anything? What if everything was a possibility? What is it that I would create in my life? And what is it that I would create in my career? Ask yourself this question from a place of pure potential, because you are pure potential. When you will ask that question, after taking away all the noise around you, after taking away all the suggestions around you, just by being present to what you really want, who you really wanna be, you will find the answer will feel good. And because it'll feel good, you will take action towards it. And when you'll take action towards it, you'll find growing your coaching business, growing your life coaching business, is going to be significantly easier. The second principle to growing your life coaching business is to make something work or fail. We all have so many tabs open at any given time.
Coach Ajit (05:32):
We are working on five, 10 different ideas. And while it may seem like that's just how we are, we are passionate individuals. And yes, you are passionate when you are working on five to 10 different ideas at any given time, you're not really evaluating each of the idea to the greatest capacity. It can, you're not providing it the energy that it requires for it to work or to fail. You want to reject the ideas that didn't work and select the ideas that did work as quickly as possible. So you can find your winning playbook as quickly as possible. Most of the ideas, most of the strategies that you will implement in your coaching business will fail. It's the truth about business is the truth. That very few people will tell you. Most things fail. Some things work, but when some things work and you double down on them, it works like magic.
Coach Ajit (06:22):
After that, this is the same secret I've learned about building an education business, building a coaching business, building any kind of business. Trying a lot of ideas is a good idea, but one at a time. So it can either win or fail, win, or fail. The idea is to go through a lot of ideas to find the one that really wins. So ask yourself, what are the five ideas I'm gonna try in sequence? So one after another. So I can either find a winning idea or I can find old ideas that are gonna fail. Now, here is the caveat. When the fifth ideas fail, don't stop, keep going, find the next five ideas that will either win or lose and keep trying till the time you find one idea that truly worked. It is so fascinating. Recently I've been studying many platforms. And one of the platforms that are studying recently is called TikTok.
Coach Ajit (07:10):
You may or may not have heard about it, but TikTok is this new platform where people are doing like dance videos and so forth. So like, I don't know if this will be relevant for coaches, but then coincidentally, I said, okay, let me search for life. Coaching on this platform. See if anything shows up. And I see this one coach that has like a million followers and all she's doing is sharing her ideas about how you can make your life better. Now, if I was to just think about, would that be the first platform I would choose? Probably not from my understanding of things, but this coach was able to figure it out and found herself on this channel and crushing it. Now, if you look at the presence of this particular coach, because I had never heard of her before, if you look at the presence on other platforms, you would not find her.
Coach Ajit (07:54):
You would not find her on Instagram to have a big following. You won't find her on Facebook to have a big following. You will find her on podcast, but a really small following, but on TikTok, she's crushing it. And the reason is because she's being authentic and that platform has worked for us. She of course destroyed all the other platforms because you could see her profile everywhere. But the platform that really worked was that one. So my question to you is not to think about what works for whom, find what works for you, but make either work or fail, work or fail because then once it works, you can double down on that. So ask yourself, what are the five ideas that you wanna pursue? So you can find the ones that didn't work and find the one eventually that did work. The third principle that you wanna remember to grow your coaching business is that you have to charge your real fee.
Coach Ajit (08:40):
The reason why I say that is so important is because I've found life coaches, especially doubt their potential and compare their fee as to what feels comfortable to them or what feels right in context of their own value. You see, as coaches or as human beings, we are always working on our self-esteem. We are always working our, on our value that we place on ourselves. It's easier for us to see value in other people. It's hard for us to see value in ourselves. And this is lifelong work. We will constantly be working on it. There will be never a time where you will be able to charge your worth because your worth is so high. You're not able to see it. And you're discounting yourself all the time. And that's why you are underpricing yourself. Here is a question I have for you. If you truly want to charge what is honest fee for your worth, is ask yourself this question.
Coach Ajit (09:28):
What is the value? What is the financial value of the outcome that my client is going to experience? Because of the work we do? What is the value of somebody feeling more confident? What is the value of a healed relationship? What is the value of letting go of past trauma and challenges and bad programming that we have had? It's tremendous. So don't wonder what your value is. Wonder what the value of your outcome is, charge the worth of the outcome, that your client experiences, as a consequence of the work together with you. The fourth principle is to make a business plan. How many of us as life coaches and I'm sure your friends are like this, right? Where you are in a reactive mode, pretty much all the time. You're always going, oh, what can I do today? And you are building your life coaching business pretty much as a reaction to society.
Coach Ajit (10:15):
Oh, where can I go today? Where can I find clients today? What ads can I run today? What content can I post today? It's always a reaction, right? It's always, what is it that I can do today? Based on what's happening around me, based on how my energy is today. And that's just not the right way of building any business. A business is built on a back of a business plan. Now I'm not saying some complicated Silicon valley type business plan. I'm saying a simple business plan, a plan that suggests that every day you have to show up in a particular way to deliver to your clients, to enroll clients, to present to clients, to create engagement in your conversation, to get referrals, you need to create a business plan that allows growth proactively. You cannot build a business on reaction. You have to build a business on proactive action.
Coach Ajit (11:01):
So here are the four elements I want you to consider in your business plan, take a piece of paper and write these four elements. The first column you're gonna write conversations. It simply means who is it that I'm gonna have a conversation with? What platforms are gonna have conversations in conversations is where coaching or coaches get to really shine. When you are in conversation with someone, when you are bringing your true self and full self to a conversation, you'll find that people are generally impressed. They're like, wow, this person can change my life. Which brings me the second column, which is enrollment. What is it that I'm gonna do on a daily basis to create enrollment conversations will lead to further openings for people to be wanting to have an enrollment with you. So make a column and write down, what am I gonna do today?
Coach Ajit (11:46):
What am I gonna do this week? Next week? And the week after to create enrollments, column three, make my clients feel the full impact of working with me. How is it I'm gonna lead this transformation in their lives so well that they are going to be amazed to work with me and want to work with me all the time. And then last column, I want to write down, how am I getting referred? How is it that people are knowing about me because of the work that I do, not because of marketing that I can do, but because of the work I can do, when you take all these four columns and start filling in for week after week, month after month, what are you doing? Day after day? What are you doing? You will find that you will have a proactive playbook to grow your business.
Coach Ajit (12:28):
One of my clients that had sent me a note a few years ago, where he said Ajit, the one thing that completely changed my business, and this was a business that was already kind of successful. One thing that completely changed my business that you did on day one with me, was to sit down with me and help me make a business plan. I had never thought of making a business plan because I thought that was for MBA. I thought that was for some, you know, when you are presenting just Silicon valley and you are trying to get an investment and you sat down with me and said, no, you need a business plan. And that's the first thing that you get a business plan, a marketing plan, something that keeps you into proactive action. And that one thing already had grown my business by 30%, by the time our coaching engagement even started.
Coach Ajit (13:09):
And that is what I want for you. I want you to experience 30, 40, 50% of growth in your business, just because you watch this video. And if you have a business plan and you follow through on it, which is very important, you will see that your business will grow because you are not going to wait for the world to tell you what you should do. You will proactively take action that will create progress in your career and in your business. And the last principle that I wanna leave you with is that you have to stay curious. You have to stay in the mode of learning when you stop learning as an individual, when you stop your curiosity, when you stop wondering how something works, it takes away creativity from your brain, and it actually creates boredom in your life and your business creation. And when you're not being creative and you're not all juiced up because you're so curious and interested in learning and getting new data all the time.
Coach Ajit (13:57):
Suddenly you'll find that your business starts to plateau. And when it starts to plateau, it is a sign that is soon about to dip because there is no version of business where you plateau a business. Plateau is just an early sign that your business is about to crash. The business must always keep growing. Your business must always keep growing. If it's getting comfortable, get uncomfortable, stay curious, stay present, and keep learning. So those are the five principles that you wanna keep in mind to grow your life. Coaching business, no business playbook, no business strategy, no business gimmick is going to grow your business. As much as these five principles will, if you stay present to them. And if you followed them day in and day out, these five principles may seem extraordinarily simple to implement, but most coaches, most life coaches, most business coaches fail to implement them on a daily basis in their life.
Coach Ajit (14:50):
Listen, one of the keys to success for long term success of business is to have a really strong foundation. This is why I am on a mission to help thousands of coaches, this January, start their coaching business in a powerful way. If you're somebody who is a new coach, a season coach that wants to rediscover their business, I have an incredible offer for you below this podcast. You see currently I'm offering my signature course, Start Your Coaching Business for a complete scholarship. Yes, you can take the whole program for a full ride and I'm doing so because I want you to finally get out there. You see most new coaches are either stuck in their head. They're either stuck with some strategy that some person said works right now and doesn't work tomorrow. They're constantly in this loop where they want to get started, but they're not able to get started because of the layers of complexity everybody keeps introducing into business.
Coach Ajit (15:40):
Because they can't really get past themselves and get a real simple structure that they can implement and start getting clients as soon as possible. I know that it's something that you want to do. That is why you are listening to this podcast. And that is why I wanna offer you the opportunity to take this three week program, finish the program and get the whole program for free. You can learn more about how you can get a full scholarship to Start Your Coaching Business below this podcast. Go ahead and check it out and see for yourself why this may be the single best course that you do in January 2022. Listen, there are over a thousand people that recommend this course, there's over a thousand coaches that are submitted testimonials for this program. There is no other program in the market for coaches that sets them up for success. This well, that has so many testimonials to back what it promises. So go ahead, check out the link below, see if this is for you and if you're willing to invest the next three weeks for the rest of your life. Thank you so much for listening in. If you haven't yet subscribed to this podcast, go ahead and do that, so you can continue to get tremendous amount of value week after week from Master Coaching with Ajit.