Coach Ajit (01:25):
This is what is gonna work for you. And very often the same person tells you a couple of months later, that the thing that they told last doesn't work anymore, and you need to learn something completely new. How many times have you found yourself in a situation where you finished the training program only to realize that the next one is completely different. The playbook is completely different. The expectation is completely different. And hence, all you're doing is keeping up with the trainer and their marketing techniques. I am here to sell this for once and for all, for any new coach that is wondering what should they do first? What is the order of activity that one should follow for them to have a thriving, successful coaching career. Now, before I give you the step by step, I do wanna bring one thing to your attention.

Coach Ajit (02:11):
These steps change when you evolve until a particular stage. So if you're somebody new and you're in the first six months or a year of your coaching career, if you're looking for your first five to 50 clients, this is exactly the step by step you got to do. But once you've found a rhythm, once you're making six figures, once you cross the 50 client mark, your model might change and evolve. And that is a different conversation. So know that right now what I'm speaking to is your first 50 clients. Not post that because post that you will have a different decision to make, and we can talk about it another day. But let's see what one has to do to get their first 50 clients. What's the step by step? What's the order of business that you need to follow, my dear friend, for you to be able to have a successful coaching career without getting overwhelmed, without getting all stressed out without getting all concerned about if you're missing out on some amazing marketing technique that will simplify your life.

Coach Ajit (03:08):
There's only one fundamental truth to building a business. And I say this after building many, many multimillion dollar companies supporting multiple seven figure companies and eight figure companies. At this point, I can tell you this as a fundamental truth of building a business. If you get the foundation, right, the business is gonna run for a very long time. The first fundamental truth of business is it starts with you. And that is your step one. You don't start with your business strategy. You don't start with your marketing plan. You start with yourself, you start with the work of who you are, what are your values? Where are you going in life? What's your vision in life? What is it that really excites you? And what is it that really takes away from your joy? Have you really taken the time to figure it out? What are the goals for yourself?

Coach Ajit (03:59):
Why should these goals work out for you? What is it that is so unique about you? That will give you the edge to have this manifestation come true for you? Have you really taken the time to create a good understanding of yourself? Have you taken the time to really listen to your mental dialogue and correct it? So you can be in an empowered state. Have you taken the time to understand your habits, your behaviors, your responses to successes and failures? The more observant you become by yourself, the more curious you become about yourself, the more smart you become about yourself, the more you have created a great foundation for when you actually start building the business. Here's the one truth that you must understand about business. When you are working in your business, you are like the first team member that you hired. A businesses, growth, a businesses.

Coach Ajit (04:51):
Success is a little bit about the product. A little bit about maybe the founder, a little bit about business strategy, but it's mostly about the team. If you can put a fantastic team together, they will figure out the product. If you can get a fantastic team together, they will figure out the business strategy and they'll make any marketing work. So business success is mostly about team success. So if you were starting a business today, you're a team of one. And the one person that is on the team is you, you have signed up for yourself. Now take the time to train yourself, to be at the highest performance level, train yourself, to have the skill, to perform at the highest level that a person can possibly perform. Use your strengths every day, ignore your weaknesses until you can hire them, but focus on you. And that is the first, the first step that you do is you build a ritual.

Coach Ajit (05:42):
You build a practice, you do the work so that you know you and you know how to work on yourself on a daily basis. So you can show up for yourself and for your business. And that's the first thing that you wanna do is work on yourself. And this is one thing that you will consistently do. If you wanna grow your business, work on yourself. First, the more you will grow as an individual, the easier it would be for you to grow your business. Most people think that business is about some business strategy, but if you would look at any business, you'll find each business has a different business strategy. So there could be not one common secret. Somebody's finding out the secret is they figured out how to leverage themselves. They figured out how to do the best they can. They figured out how to work with people.

Coach Ajit (06:30):
That is the truth of building a business. The first thing is work on yourself and find a way to work on yourself consistently, because this will be your best bet you, before we get into action steps of your business. One step at a time, let's look at the second key principle that is vital to success of a coach. And that is your methodology. Let's take a minute. And imagine that everybody that you ever spoke to said yes, to working with you, how would you actually deliver that product? How is it that your client will experience an outstanding outcome by working with you? How is it that your clients will experience 10 X the return on their investment in context of their health elevated, their life elevated or their business elevated? How is it that your client is winning? You see most new coaches are so fixated on business principles and business strategies and how I get a client that they forget, the clients don't sign up with you.

Coach Ajit (07:28):
They sign up with their own possibility. And the only way they are going to sign up with their own possibility is they see that you have the capability to bring about their possibility. You have the capability to bring about the results that they desire for themselves. You have the capability as a coach to help them overcome their challenges. And that capability can only be demonstrated if you have a good fundamental base on how coaching is done. And it only happens if you have solid foundations on coaching principles and you have a solid methodology, that creates results. So the second thing that you wanna work on is create your methodology and test it first with yourself, and then will people around you before you go out in the world. So you have proof of concept and you can actually go out to your potential clients and create results with them.

Coach Ajit (08:23):
Because once they see results, there is no turning back. Recently, my life has got really busy. I had a daughter recently and I decided that I need to stop coaching one-on-one. I can't handle one-on-one contracts anymore and started telling my clients, Hey, listen, you know, after the end of this year, as our contract comes around, I don't think I wanna take clients. And I wanna dedicate some more time to my family and focus on the things that I'm focused on and focus on my new book that I am working towards. And every single client, every single client said, can you make an exception? Can we somehow continue to work together? And that's not because of any other reason, but my methodology is so strong that every time I work with a client, even if I work with them for two, three years, I'm able to create 10 times a return on their investment.

Coach Ajit (09:12):
So find a solid methodology and keep evolving. It. It is going to become again, a foundational element for your success. Before you start deploying business principles. Now that you've worked on yourself and your methodology now is the time to consider what should be the steps that one should take in the order that they should be taken. So for somebody to really create success in their coaching business, especially as a new coach. So let me break down the business step by step. Step one is to answer these three key questions that will help you identify who do you serve? How do you serve them and what is the problem that you solve for them? So here are the three questions you wanna answer. This is who do you help and get as specific as you get, the more specific you are, the more intentional you'll become.

Coach Ajit (09:58):
The more attention you will pay with who you're talking to. The more attention you will have in creating outcomes with this person and identifying the problems with this person. So get really specific. Don't just say, I work with everybody. Don't say I work with men. Don't say I work with women. Talk about more specifics. I work with a particular kind of men or a particular kind of women in a particular area of their life. The second question you wanna answer is what do you help with? What is the area of life that you are really helping with? What is the problem that you're really helping with? Is it around relationships? Is it around health? Is it around behavior change? What is it that you help with? The third question is how do you help them? This is your methodology. What is the model that you use to help somebody who walks through the door and says, I need your help.

Coach Ajit (10:45):
Can you coach me please? How do you help them answer this question? As detailed as possible? The fourth question will help you identify your sales pitch while the first three questions help you identify your message. The fourth question that I'm about to share will help you identify how you will offer this to someone. What pain is gone when they work with you? What pain in their life disappears when they work with you? Here's the reason why we answer this question. When we think about, Hey, I work with men who are entrepreneurs in their twenties, let's say, in growing their businesses or helping organize their teams using my proprietary coach consultant methodology.

Coach Ajit (11:31):
I do so because I know that the big pain that a 20-year old entrepreneur men would have is that they fear they cannot lead a team. That they fear they have an imposter syndrome. They fear that they don't belong. They fear that they're working with people that seem to be more talented and experienced than them. You see, when I know their, when I know what is it that is really happening for my potential client. It makes it easier for me to actually establish communication with them because I know exactly the pain they want to alleviate. That shows up as a particular result that they want in their life in a particular way. They want it in their life, in a particular category that they want in their life. So it's very important to answer that question. So to spend some time to identify what pain is gone, when your clients work with you, the second step is to identify how the conversation's gonna go, right?

Coach Ajit (12:26):
When you are a new coach, your principle, your key idea should be, I don't need to have a hundred clients tomorrow. I need to find the one perfect client. So have found a way to communicate with them, show them my capabilities, create results for them, so I can continue to enroll them. And you will do that for the first year of your coaching career. You don't wanna try and be expansive and grow too fast while you're still figuring out what is it that you even do. So the second step that you wanna do is ask yourself the question on how would you open a conversation? So the second step that you wanna take is to answer these questions, how would you open a conversation? How would you lead them into a coaching conversation and how would you make an offer? So let's say you go to a physical space where people are very comfortably and openly talking about their relationships because they're seeking advice.

Coach Ajit (13:13):
Or they're just communicating openly because say an event around that. And you're somebody who wants to coach individuals in a very specific area of relationships, say, for example, the first year of parenting of a newborn, how would you open this conversation? How would you even start to know if this person is the right person that you're talking to? And once you identify that, what is the flow of conversation that needs to happen for your potential client to even lean into some kind of coaching or some kind of interest in coaching. And once that has happened, what would be the next steps to actually make an offer? Now, there are many ways to do so. And we do give you tools around that in our program, start your coaching business that is available on full scholarship. Starting today, below this video, you'll find a link that will show you how you can get a full scholarship to that program.

Coach Ajit (14:00):
But for now, for the sake of this podcast, answer just these three questions, ask yourself, how would you open a conversation? How would you lead them to coaching and how would you make an offer? And then I want you to take this material and go out and test in the world. By testing. It simply means go out and approach a few people that may qualify for this and see what happens. One of the keys to really know what works or not is to actually go out in the world and see how it fits. It's like when you wanna buy a jacket or you wanna buy a high end coat, you wanna actually go into the store and try it out. If you're buying a high end, watch you wanna go in the store and see how it fits your rest. You just don't wanna order it online because you don't know what you're gonna get.

Coach Ajit (14:44):
You could do that with products that don't hold a lot of value, but products that are life transforming for you, you probably wanna see how they work. And that is kind of how your business will get developed as well. Your business can change your life and your life can change because of your business. Go out and try a little bit, go ahead and test it out a little bit. See how people respond to your messages and how you communicate and what is it that you may have missed in your communication? The only way to really know that is not to sit and intellectualize it, but to actually go out in the world and try it now, as you will test this, you will find that every single time you test it, you get better. Every single time you go out and say it in the world, you get better.

Coach Ajit (15:24):
You get better in communicating it. You get better in getting a response. You get better in coaching. You get better at making an offer. And as you're getting better, what I want you to do as step three is actually make the offer, actually make the offer, but make it for free. So a person can say yes, much more easily, and you don't have to fight your internal resistance that may come up. When you're first trying to ask for money for a service that is new to you and you're offering only now in the world outside. Now, if you feel comfortable, you can bypass the step and take the next step, which is to ask for money straight away as you enroll clients. But if you feel uncomfortable asking for money, start with giving away your services for free. This is what I did in my early part of my coaching career.

Coach Ajit (16:08):
I would take the time and energy sometimes to spend one to two days with potential clients and simply offer my services as something that I'm giving away for free. I was letting people try out what I have to offer while trying to figure it out. What is it that I even want to offer? How is it that I wanna offer? What is a format that really works for me and what is a format that doesn't work for me? And once I was able to do this test, a couple of times, I felt confident that now I could go ahead and tell people, stories of these clients that have taken my services for free and also charge people money for my services, going out in the world and giving people services for free gives you two things. Firstly, it gives you the confidence that you can actually create results in your clients' lives.

Coach Ajit (16:49):
And secondly, it actually gives you testimonies and stories to tell of past lines that have had a result with you. Now you can use these stories to enroll new clients. Now, as you're going out in the world and offering you coaching services for a fee, you may be asking for a really small amount for one or two sessions. That's how you start. You say, all right, we are gonna do one session. It's gonna cost you this much either. You're gonna do two sessions. It's gonna cost you this much. But once you've made that offer a couple of times, I'm sure you'll find yourself wanting. Is there a better way? And this is where you wanna define your package. You wanna see how is it that you can structure an outcome for your client, the most frequent outcome that your clients hope to get by working with you?

Coach Ajit (17:32):
How can you structure it in a small or large way? So a person can say yes and commit to a particular timeline of working with you. You wanna start with something that is say a three month package or a five month package. They're short enough that you can price them reasonably and people should be able to afford it fairly easily. You can run this coaching package in any way you want. You can make it a one on one. You can do it in a group format, which brings me to step six, go out in the world and start offering this package. Start going out in the world and use everything that you have learned until this point. And try it until this point to make the offer of the package that you just crafted. What is important while doing this process is if somebody says, yes, try to ask, why did they say yes or try to figure out why did they say a yes?

Coach Ajit (18:18):
And if somebody says, no, also try to figure out why did they say no? The reason why it is so important that you discover at this stage, why somebody says yes and why somebody says no is because this knowledge, this information will help you stand apart from everybody. It'll make your conversations easy. You will know much ahead in time, even before you propose it. If somebody's gonna say yes, if somebody's gonna say no, you'll be able to qualify your clients better. You'll be able to engage with them better. And you will eventually start getting yeses and have a long list of clients waiting for you because you have such a good read on people. They're yeses. They're no. They're reason why's. What works, what doesn't work. And that's really the competence that you're building while you're doing all of this legwork, to get yourself to a place where you can really scale your coaching business.

Coach Ajit (19:04):
And that brings me to step seven. And this step is so very critical and most people don't do it. Step seven is where you make a business plan. A lot of coaches, fear making business plans. They don't wanna make a business plan because they love their freedom. They feel like they're going back to their job, but here's the truth about coaching businesses. When you are a coach, you own your time, you are free, you could do whatever you want. And when we are left to our own vices, when we are left to you could do whatever you want. Sometimes we fall for a trap. How many times have you found yourself not taking action to its things that you know are good for you for your business, for your health, but you don't do them. And one of the reasons is because there is no hard timeline.

Coach Ajit (19:49):
You haven't given yourself only a short space of time to create outstanding results. Once you do that, it makes it easier for you to take action because it's in context of time, there's a time limitation. There's a time barrier and you wanna hold yourself accountable to actually meet that timeline. So go ahead and make a business plan for the next six months for the next one year, whatever feels comfortable, but something that is a long period of time, that will keep you in motion. Because if you don't stay in motion, you will find ways and will get distracted. Very, very soon, the one underlying success to phenomenally successful coaches is they're consistent. They may fall off the wagon once in a while, but they're still wildly consistent. They do the work day in, day out, even if they don't really feel like in that moment, they might work a little less, but they will still come in and do the work that they committed to.

Coach Ajit (20:44):
And that is critical for your long-term success. So go ahead and make a business plan. And again, if you don't know how to make one, we give you the tools inside. Start Your Coaching Business that you can get for full scholarship. Know more about it in the shownotes below. The final final step as a new coach that you need to remember is there will be a point in your coaching career where your understanding of the business understanding of your coaching would evolve. And this would be the time when your market is also evolved. You have a lot more followers, a lot more people who are watching your work are interested in working with you. This is the time where you evolve to a mainstream market.

Coach Ajit (21:23):
This is the time where you ask yourself broader, bigger questions on who is it that I want on my team? Who is it that would be great to add as asset? And that would help us build more and more and more as a company. And then you go out and try many different formats of delivery. You might say, I don't wanna do one on one. I only wanna do events. I only wanna do groups. I only wanna do programs. I only wanna do blank, whatever that might be, but you will be able to ask yourself that question and be able to actually deliver to that promise to yourself. So this is the final step, right? This is step eight and there are more steps after that to keep growing your coaching business. But until you get to step eight to step one through seven, and the more times you do the final few steps of going out in the world and testing it out, offering your packages, seeing what is getting, you know, following a business plan, the more likely you are to get out of the rut of how do I get started to finally getting started.

Coach Ajit (22:19):
Now, if in the next 21 days, you are interested in starting your coaching business. I hugely hugely recommend you check out our scholarship offer on Start Your Coaching Business. Start Your Coaching Business has helped thousands and thousands of coaches get started. We have over a thousand testimonials on the program, and I really do believe that this program might be transformative for you. It might change the way you have been doing business until now, and as a new coach, it can finally give you the start that you truly deserve. So go ahead, check out Start Your Coaching Business below in the shownotes. If you haven't yet subscribed to our podcast, please do take a second and subscribe to Master Coaching with Ajit. It's the final episode of the Start Strong series for 2022. Go ahead and share this episode with a friend that you think can use this episode, that is struggling to get that coaching business started. I'm sure you enjoyed our conversation today and enjoyed this series. So go ahead and leave us a five star rating. Thank you so much for listening. This is Coach Ajit and you're listening to Master Coaching with Ajit podcast.