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Home-Based Business Opportunity #3: Coaching

Closely related to consulting is coaching. Consulting helps clients solve specific problems, while coaching gives clients ongoing guidance and motivation to achieve broad goals.

In the 1960s, advertising executive and satirist Stan Freberg wrote a song called “Betsy Ross and the Flag: Everybody Wants to Be an Art Director.” In the 21st century, the title of the song could be “Everybody Wants to Be a Coach.” Coaching, along with Internet marketing, is one of the hottest business opportunities today. Could you make a living as a coach?

By the time you are 50, you’ve spent years making a living through one or more venues in life. Now you would be happy to teach others how to do the same thing—and pay your bills while doing it. Being an independent coach may very well be one of the most rewarding careers you can get into, and it is perfectly suited as a home-based business. Plus, your years of experience and wisdom could make you quite attractive for those 30-something, would-be entrepreneurs out there who are “only now” realizing they could use some help figuring all this out.

IS THIS FOR ME?

Before you hang a whistle around your neck and call yourself a coach, make sure you’ve had some solid, successful experience in whatever area you plan to specialize in. You can only be a successful coach if you’ve got the background—if you’ve experienced the ups and downs in that niche and can show others how you handled difficult situations or overcame roadblocks. It is good if you have already taught classes or guest lectured in the area in which you would like to coach. If so, you’ll certainly know if you have the talent to relate and successfully impart to others what you know that they need to know.

How would you go about building your coaching business? Your first step will be to decide which of the lessons you have learned in your life could be valuable to others. Sit down and make a list of what you have done in your life so far. From that list, determine what you feel you are quite good at and then narrow that list down further to the areas you would like to coach others in.

Your next step is to outline how you would go about building this kind of business and what you will need to practice the type of coaching you want to offer. There are two broad areas of coaching: One is physical coaching and the other is motivational coaching—working with a client to change thinking patterns rather than physical skills.

Needless to say, if you are a football (physical) coach, you will need a playing field and a gym, along with a team. But as a home-based motivational coach, you might be able to provide your services over the phone or by e-mail. So, you see how you could take a coaching career two different directions—physical or motivational—or combine it into one coaching package.

CONSULTING VS. COACHING

At this point, you might ask “What is the difference between consulting and coaching?” Let’s compare a business coach to a business consultant.

A business consultant talks with a client, either by phone or in a personal visit to the client’s place of business, usually about a particular action the business wants to take. For instance, a marketing consultant helping to create a particular sales campaign would ask how customer data is being gathered and analyzed and what strategies are used for approaching customers. The sales campaign would be analyzed and the consultant would offer suggestions about materials and copy to be sent out. The business consultant would help develop new strategies and guidelines for the client, based on weaknesses that already exist in the overall program. A consultant focuses on fixing processes.

In contrast, a business coach would concentrate more on the client and less on the processes, working to change how a client might see himself in his business. Business coaches focus more on motivational strategies, helping clients rethink their participation in the business and providing guidance toward more positive and productive thinking. Coaching is more about working with clients to change their thinking and develop natural talents that enhance not only themselves, but their business, as well.

HOW BOB DOES IT

If you pay attention to e-mails you get from information marketers, you notice that, in addition to selling you their content, they are also giving a lot of their content away. As a business coach, you should consider doing the same. Why?

Because if all you are doing is selling, your prospects will stop reading your e-mails or letters or listening to your presentations. But if you offer a combination of both free and paid content, they will stay interested and keep reading or listening. They will also appreciate the free stuff you give them and pay back your generosity by ordering more from you.

What can you give away for free? Well, links that let your readers watch a free video online. Or listen to an audio mp3 file. Or receive invitations to attend free webinars, or to receive free special reports and e-books.

How do you know what content to give away versus what content you charge for? My rule of thumb, given to me by Internet marketing consultant Wendy Montes de Oca, is this:

Your free content tells your readers what to do. Your paid content tells them how to do it.

For example, in an e-mail newsletter, I have revealed the five best ways to promote yourself as a freelance copywriter and explained what the five methods are. But in the limited space of an e-mail, I could not possibly explain how to do each.

However, I do sell information products that teach how to perform each method in great detail. And, I offer these to my readers at a reasonable price.

Consider how you could adapt that technique to your coaching business.

WHO HIRES A COACH?

To gauge whether you would like to be a coach, you should first understand who your potential clients would be. Who hires a coach? Anyone who needs extra help to pull something together.

Sometimes people might find themselves at a loss as to how to proceed in a new business. Maybe they want to give presentations to large audiences or sell a product or service but are fearful of public speaking. Or, maybe they don’t believe they are good at sales. So they look for someone who has a successful history of speaking in front of large audiences or running effective sales campaigns to coach them. Coaches can offer a number of techniques that will allow people to move past their fears of failure and become immersed in the presentations they want to give or to create the campaigns they want to carry out. Most of this can be taught in one-on-one situations over several coaching sessions.

One coaching/consulting firm, Passion for Business, lists on its website (www.passionforbusiness.com) some of the types of clients the company has assisted through its coaching or consulting services, or, in some cases, a combination of the two:

•Accountant

•Adult education school owner

•Alternative medicine healer

•Animal trainer

•Attorney

•Author

•Business consultant

•Calligrapher

•Career counselor

•Caterer

•Chiropractor

•Clergy coach

•Copywriter

•Dance studio owner

•Divorce mediator

•Employment agency owner

•Event planner

•Financial advisor/planner

•Fitness center designer

•Graphic designer

•Holistic healer

•House painter and restorer

•Instructional designer/trainer

•Interior decorator

•Jewelry designer

•Life coach

•Marketing consultant

•Meeting planner

•Motivational speaker

•Multi-level marketer

•Online distance-learning school owner

•Outplacement facilitator

•Organizational development consultant

•Personal chef

•Photographer

•Professional organizer

•Professional speaker

•Psychotherapist

•Real estate agent/broker

•Real estate investor

•Retail store owner

•Small business coach

•Venture capital consultant

•Virtual assistant

•Wedding planner

•Yoga and Pilates instructor

To get an idea about how you might set up a coaching business, take a look at the way Passion For Business operates, which includes a variety of phone-based coaching programs. One, the comprehensive 90-day strategy and planning program, is offered for about $1,400 and includes nine 45-minute phone consultations over 90 days. Also, part of the program consists of unlimited short consulting e-mails and access to a client-only website that is chock-full of related resources.

A less comprehensive package is offered for about $500 and includes three 45-minute phone consultations, unlimited short consulting e-mails, and access to the client-only website. Or, the company will provide individual coaching for about $225 per hour.

WHAT COULD I COACH?

There are many avenues you could explore if you want to be a coach, either physical, motivational, or both. Consider all the skills you have learned in a lifetime of work and through your hobbies and leisure activities to see if there are some you could pass along as a coach.

For example, if you spent years as a professional ballerina with several ballet companies and performed many leading roles, you could become a private coach to aspiring ballerinas. You might be lucky enough to have a large house with one big room that could be converted into a dance studio where you could work with your clients. Or, you could rent a studio from a dance school during hours when there are no classes or rehearsals.

Voice coaches are often in high demand, especially for clients new to the speech and presentation circuits. If you have background in this area, you can work with a client on speech patterns and breathing techniques. No one wants to listen to a speaker for more than 10 minutes if that speaker’s voice is monotone and boring.

WORD TO THE WISE

Be aware that anytime you bring people to your home, you should have insurance to cover yourself in case of any accident on your property. You can also have your clients sign release forms if insurance is too expensive for the type of business coaching you are conducting. Check with a lawyer. Also, be aware of neighborhood zoning issues that might prevent you from bringing people to your home in a business capacity.

Maybe your way of relaxing from your stressful job for the past few decades has been to head to the shooting range or enter shooting competitions. You could turn that hobby into a coaching role. If you haven’t already, take the programs offered by the National Rifle Association (NRA), which certifies you in pistol, rifle, shotgun, and home protection. Once you go through the program, you will most likely start out working with other coaches in group situations, possibly as part of community service with a firearms club.

When you have enough experience training others in this type of setting, you can start your own coaching service. Take advantage of local and regional shooting competitions, which teach you to perform under stress and will be a great place to publicize your skills and your business. Normally, private coaching fees can run from $50 to $100 per hour, depending on whether you are working with a new client who has never shot before or someone who already shoots pistols but wants to learn how to handle a shotgun.

COACHING LIFE SKILLS

Motivational coaching, along with life coaching, can cover many areas of life, including the two previous examples of ballet and firearms coaching. Instead of teaching students how to perform the physical moves needed to succeed at a difficult ballet variation or timed shooting competition, you could teach what mental adjustments could help a client be successful.

For example, dancer may fear having to make a series of difficult turns during a variation. A motivational coach can help the dancer mentally picture a successful completion of these turns ahead of time, lessening the fears of those turns. The pressure of having many people watching during a competition can be intimidating and stressful to shooters. A coach could train the shooter to forget the audience and improve concentration and focus.

Being a motivational and life coach can be very rewarding when you see your clients overcoming personal hang-ups and pushing forward to accomplish what they want to do. Motivational coaches can help people in any number of professions or lifestyles. A mom who is home all day with young kids may need a life coach to help her accomplish more at home and take control of her lifestyle. The coach goes into the home, watches what goes on there for a day or two, and then offers the mom some ideas about how she can more effectively accomplish what she needs to do in a way that is more fulfilling to her. This type of coaching is ideal for women who have successfully navigated similar passages in their lives and have developed strategies that could be helpful to others.

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