The Start

One of the questions you’ll wonder about early on is how to build your business. This isn’t meant to be a complete guide, but an idea of how to go about it.

Here are some ideas:

1. Connect. Don’t worry about getting clients at first, just practice connecting with people. As many as possible! Really get curious about people, and learn to love the act of connecting. Do it online but also in real life. Do calls just for the sake of connecting with people. A good idea is to try to fill up your free calendar time with connection calls.
2. Help people see possibility. Once you’re good at connecting, you can do one more thing on these connection calls: help people connect with their possibility. More on this later (possibility) … but the idea is to help them explore what might be possible in their lives. In a month, a year, in 10 years. You know they’ve connected with this when they light up! Get really good at this, because it’s the reason people will get excited by the possibility of coaching.
3. Invite them to a coaching session. If you feel connected to their possibility, invite them to a free coaching call! This is how they start to see the magic of coaching — by actually experiencing it. Give out these sessions as a gift — you don’t have to be attached to them signing up as a client, just enjoy the process of coaching them. Help them to see what’s in the way, and what might move it out of the way, so that they can create their possibility.
4. Propose. When you’ve coached them, they might want more. If you’re clear that you would like to work with them, make a proposal. The proposal should be a big commitment for them — it should help them step into their lives (see Committing to their lives). This is often the scariest part for both the coach and the client, but it’s a sacred act, and you can support them with whatever fears inevitably show up.
5. Create helpful content. Other than connecting with as many people as possible, another way to serve people that will help build up your business is to create content online. Blog posts, courses, ebooks, Youtube videos, Facebook lives, inspiring posts on Instagram. Don’t worry about doing all of this, focus on getting good at one at a time, and then move on to another area if it serves. The idea is to not worry about building your business as you create this content, but just create it to serve and be helpful. Be valuable and people will appreciate your service, and some will want to connect with you.

Those are the basics. They’re not that hard, though they take time to master.

The thing that will get in the way are your fears.

NEXT: How do you deal with your fears as a coach?