The following article covers:
What does a business coach do?
Can I become a business coach?
How to become a business coach without qualification?
Are you curious about how you become a business coach and start your coaching business? Then this guide is for you!
To become a business coach having a passion for helping people is not enough. You also need relevant experience and skills to help entrepreneurs and business owners achieve their goals. In this guide you are about to find out:
- What do business coaches do?
- Can you become a business coach?
- How can you start business coaching if you do not have experience yet?
- How much can you potentially earn as a business coach?
What does a business coach do?
First thing first, who can be considered a business coach?
A business coach is someone who helps entrepreneurs and business owners improve their skills and performance. They provide guidance and support to overcome challenges and assist in maximizing business potential and success.
The core responsibilities of a business coach include:
- Assisting in identifying and overcoming challenges.
- Helping in setting and achieving business goals.
- Creating an action plan to help your clients achieve those goals
- Holding clients accountable for their actions and progress.
- Providing feedback and resources, and setting yourself as an example, if necessary
- Offering advice on business strategies, decision-making, and problem-solving.
- Acting as a sounding board for ideas and concerns.
Can I become a business coach?
If you have come to the point where you look for how you can become a great business coach, chances are you can become one.
However, you need the relevant business experience to start coaching. That is, you should have a first-hand experience of what a business is like from the inside out. Of course, there are coaches with no business helping entrepreneurs set and achieve business goals. But can their strategies bring sustainable results? Scarcely so! They can act more like mentors rather than practical business coaches.
Having said that, you do not need to be a multi billion dollar business owner to start coaching. Not at all!
Perhaps, you were able to start a start up business that scaled more quickly than you imagined it to. Or you employed some advertising strategies you want to share with others. Depending on your relevant experience you can definitely find something to build your business coaching on.
Other options include:
- Startup coach
- Marketing coach
- Sales coach
- Business strategy coach
- Business development coach
- Business operation coach
You get the idea!
“Wait, what if I don’t have a coaching certification?”, you might wonder. Let’s see if you need one.
Do I need certification for creating business coaching?
Technically you do not need a certification to start a business coaching business. There are thousands of business coaches without a certificate.
Yet, you might want to consider getting certification. First of all, it builds up your skills as a coach, and before becoming a certified specialist, you learn lots of new techniques and methodologies that drive clients’ success.
Besides, if you are a first-time coach, let’s say it is better to have a certification and display it on your website. It will greatly increase the trust factor toward you as a specialist.
Andy Nelson, who is an ICF-certified coach himself, does recommend getting a certification.
“Lean into it in terms of trying some coaching and also getting official education and training at it. What I feel is that the folks who did lean in in some educational program were able to understand themselves better, which makes us better coaches.”
How to become a business coach without qualification?
One does not become a business coach and start a coaching business overnight. Here are the main steps you must take if you want to start an online business coaching.
Niche down
You have already chosen your coaching niche, which is, business coaching. However, here you want to get more specific. In other words, you should choose who you want to work with letting out all of the people you will not be working with.
“The mistake a lot of business owners make is to spread themselves too thin and avoid choosing that one thing because they want to work across industries. A reluctance to niche down is understandable, especially if you are a coach who naturally likes variety but it is vitally important - the people who win big always niche down. “
Sales and Business Coach
Some potential niches you can choose from are:
- Tech startups
- Creative industries
- Social enterprises
- Small businesses
- Online businesses
While you may offer help about various industries, pick one you are the expert in. This will help you get more quality clients and find them way quickly.
Plan how you are going to work
First, think about your goal. What is the goal of your program? Why would you even create it? Establish objectives for yourself, for clients who may want to purchase your services, and for organizations (as some of your collaborations are going to be B2B).
Having a clear goal will allow you to do on-point market research and create a working marketing strategy. Once you know who you want to work with, you will know better how exactly you can help them. Here are some examples goals you can set:
Helping a business scale
- Helping with starting someone’s first business
- Assisting consultants in client acquisition process
- Helping e-commerce businesses with offline customer experience
- Helping young entrepreneurs, etc
Next, you also need to decide how you want to engage with your clients. For example, some coaches establish a precise schedule on how regularly they will be meeting with the clients. Others do not set boundaries and can jump on a call with their clients whenever they need assistance.
Lastly, think about whether you offer only offline business coaching, online business coaching, or a mix of both. If you decide on online coaching, perhaps you might need a coaching platform.
For example, Uteach is an all-in-one platform helping coaches automate lots of tasks, run coaching sessions and make business management easier. With Uteach you can create your professional coaching website, offer coaching packages, schedule appointments, manage your clients and so much more.
Network, learn and practice
Assuming you are truly a business expert. Is your knowledge in business enough to make you a business coach? Certainly not.
This is why you should begin to actually practice business coaching. If you come from a corporate background, or got a leadership job, finding clients to practice would be much easier. Perhaps, you already have friends in the industry, or people who have been asking you for advice. So, practicing is the next important thing to do on your way of becoming a business coach after you are clear with your goals.
And how can you find a way to practice? For example, Mick Rutjes, who is a life and spiritual coach, set up a program called Coaching Gym. This is an excellent way for coaches with diverse experience to meet, network, and learn from each other.
So, next time you attend a business meeting, event for entrepreneurs or something of the sort, think about how you can use that opportunity to practice. Who knows, the people you meet might become referral partners for you.
On your way of practicing you also want to ensure you keep learning and developing business coaching skills. Here are core skills you should try to get better at.
What skills do I need as a business coach?
- Strong communication skills
- Expertise in business
- Financial analysis
- Strategic planning
- Networking skills
- Willingness to learn continuously
- Active listening skills
- Ability to establish a coaching presence
If you want to learn and get better as a business coach, you may also consider getting official training. The most popular certification choices include the International Coach Federation (ICF),the Center for Coaching Certification (CCC),and the Coach Training Alliance.
Create a good offer
Now, we have reached the point where you need to create your coaching program. As a coaching program, it must remain flexible because you will be working with organizations in a variety of industries.
However, to be able to market your program and position yourself as a credible coach, you must be well aware of the essential stages, assessments, and activities your program must incorporate.
It is all about establishing what you will be covering and how you will be coaching. Assuming you want to help people to start a business without huge investments. In this case you will be helping them find a niche, build an audience and start selling their products or services.
To do so, you might need to establish a timeframe for the end goal. That can be a three-month program. Then you can break the goal, in our case starting one’s business with minimal investments into smaller objectives and assign deadlines for each. What the client is going to achieve by the end of the first month, the second, the third?
Grow your audience
You need more practice to have more clients and you need more clients to practice. It is a never-ending cycle. And how can you get more clients and grow your audience as a business coach? The answer is no different from that in the case of any other business - the email list.
Start by building an email list of subscribers who have opted in to receive communications from you. You can collect email addresses through your website, social media channels, webinars, free resources, or by offering incentives such as discounts or exclusive content.
Then, set up email automation sequences to deliver a series of pre-written emails to new subscribers or leads over time. This can include welcome sequences, onboarding sequences, or nurture sequences designed to educate and build trust with your clients.
Another way you can grow your audience as a business is by establishing a strong coaching presence.
Work on your branding and online presence
Your goal at this stage is to establish an online presence as a business coach and position yourself as so. That is why you should think about how to let your audience know about yourself. Try to establish relationships with your audience through target channels, which may include:
Your professional online coaching website
- Your blog page, where you educate your audience
- Your social media, especially LinkedIn, where you let your audience know about yourself and share valuable content
- A livestream on platforms like YouTube or LinkedIn, with other successful business coaches
- Your podcasts, or webinars.
There are so many options! And establishing your personal branding and presence this way will help you get business coaching clients much faster.
For example, Linda Tilson, a life and career development coach, runs her podcast on YouTube. She also joins coaches from various fields on LinkedIn lives to discuss pressing questions.
Be ready for competition in the market
Let’s also quickly overview the competition in the market. The data below showcases that competition to rank for keywords such as “business coaching,” “business coaching program,” and “online business coaching” is medium.
The medium competition will allow you to rank easier; however, it still showcases the demand. Also, it is worth mentioning that ad costs are in an affordable range as well.
If you create proper marketing and SEO strategies with an appropriate budget, you can rank your business coaching program, generate leads and turn them into real-time customers.
There are certain challenges that you will face as a business coach. Being aware of those challenges is the first step toward avoiding panic and instead finding solutions.
FAQ about business coaching
Throughout this section of the article, we will answer the most common questions that beginner business coaches have.
What challenges do business coaches face?
Some of the challenges business coaches and consultants face include:
- Resistance to change. You will be working with established professionals, whether that be a founder or an employee. This means you may face some resistance toward change. However, as a coach, your goal is to communicate effectively and help people to get into a “growth mindset.”
- Limited time and expectation of immediate results. Keep in mind that as a coach, you aim for long-term behavioral change, so if an organization demands a change in one week, that simply is not possible.
- Difficulties to find the right clients
- Building your business strategy
How to become a certified business coach?
To become a certified business coach, you will need to choose a certification program and get training. To choose a coaching training program take into account your goals, your experience level, training format and your learning styles. As you complete the required training hours set by your program, you will be ready for the assessment.
Depending on the coaching program you chose the examination will vary, including written exams and performance evaluations.
How much can a business coach earn?
On average, business coaches charge from $150 up to $500 per hour. If it is a wholesome program, you can price it from $500 to $1000 per individual. For a whole team, the price can be around $1500 to $5000.
If you price a program at $1500 and make the first three sales during the first month, you will earn $4500.
Top business coaches in the industry earn, on average, $12,000/mo. And in terms of salary, the average business coach salary in the US is $40.1 an hour as for 2024.
How to measure business coaching effectiveness?
Here are the main ways you can measure business coaching effectiveness:
- Analyze long and short-term results and performance improvements of individuals and whole teams.
- Compare business results and track changes in numbers such as net profit increase, ROI rate, employee satisfaction rate, etc.
- Ask for direct feedback from the clients.
- Provide 360-degree feedback
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