Today’s question comes from Liz at our live recording at Being Boss Miami. We’re giving advice on some of those first steps for starting a coaching business—the literal first things you should make a priority and finding your positioning to get confident about what you do, what you offer, and how people can hire you.
Emily Thompson 0:00
Hello and welcome to being boss. For this minisode, we got a question live from one of our Miami bosses.
Kathleen Shannon 0:14
Tell us about yourself.
Liz Garcia 0:15
I'm Liz Garcia from Austin, Texas. And I am a life leadership and story coach. I recently left full time employment to start my own coaching and consulting business. My previous employers, my first client, so really great for the transition. My question is really about lessons learned. And if you guys had to do it over what there's, there's so much information out there about how to start a business. So it's overwhelming. What would be an outline, even if I end up doing it out of order? Because everybody's different, but what would be your outline steps for starting a business? Whether it's process like I'm things that I don't even know I need to be thinking about? Okay, I know I did. branding, ecourse, braid creative, that stuff. That's a step. Right.
Kathleen Shannon 1:09
Okay, okay. outline for starting a business.
Emily Thompson 1:13
Do you want?
Emily Thompson 1:14
I don't know. No, No, I'm just kidding. Oh, no, no, we do No, no.
Emily Thompson 1:18
So do you want more of like, legal,
Kathleen Shannon 1:23
all of it, she wants all of it.
Emily Thompson 1:25
One set of a bank account.
Kathleen Shannon 1:29
Two get some branding? Three,
Emily Thompson 1:33
Define that.
Kathleen Shannon 1:35
Okay, let me just start over. So I, because we actually have an opportunity to speak on this, because we just started being boss, and the way that it worked for us. And I think that this the way that a lot of businesses work, we had the opportunity to start from scratch, knowing what we know now. And it was still a completely organic process. I think by starting by knowing what it is that you want to do, and what it is that you offer, and how people give you money, is the biggest part of it. So I think that before you have branding, before you have a bank account, before you have anything, you have to be able to go up to someone and say, This is what I do, here's how you can hire me. So really understanding your positioning. And I do think that that's a branding component, at least the way that we do it. It's a branding component, knowing what it is, who you are, who you're for how people can hire you. You don't necessarily have to have a beautiful logo yet, which is what a lot of people think of whenever they think of branding is brand identity. And I think that it's a good idea to get something up online. Emily might kill me for saying this. But I think that Squarespace, I mean, there are a lot of resources that have made it really easy to kind of DIY your own website. A lot of times number of brand new entrepreneurs come to Tara and myself for branding. And sometimes we're hesitant to work with them immediately. Like we almost want them to be a year in so that they're not, I wouldn't want to say wasting any money, but not backpedaling in six months, whenever they realize that this idea, this vision that they branded is actually something that they hate doing. So let's say you're becoming a life coach, and you haven't had one client yet, and you get all this branding, you have a business plan, you spend all this money into resources for your own business, and then you get some clients and realize that you hate life coaching, you've just wasted a lot of money. So my suggestion whenever starting a business is to always do the work first, like what is it that you're actually doing? And then after that, for me, I mean, I'm a branding professional. So for me, it's easy to say branding next. And where you do start to make sure that the work that you're doing is being authentically represented in your brand. So I always call it like so that your outsides match your insights. So there are no brand disconnects. And then I think getting a website getting a solid website. And of course this is like in the online sphere for us, but then getting a website is huge and really important.
Emily Thompson 4:25
That's beautiful.
Kathleen Shannon 4:26
Hey, thanks.
Emily Thompson 4:27
Um, I will go back on a couple of things. One, I still recommend getting that bank account first. I feel like that legitimate step of setting up a business and even if you're even if you're doing it as a sole provider, or like that step is like this is official like you're gonna make money doing what you want to do whatever that may be, can be a really good first step. So getting like a business bank account and from the get go keeping those financial separate. That wasn't something that we did first with being boss because we already had separate business accounts that we kind of like, just David did things with. But whenever it was like legit, the bank account was the first thing that we made sure that we did so. So I would say that bank account, I feel like that legitimising piece of info can really be a piece of fuel that will get you to those next steps. And then I do agree that it's making some decisions, and it's not your final decisions. But some decisions around what your brand is, in terms of who you are, who you're serving. And how you're serving them is certainly something you have to decide, at least for the moment for moving forward. And again, you'll change your mind, like, I started with websites, I'm now a podcaster. Like you will make evolutions, but making those first decisions and understanding that they may not be long term, and at least moving forward is really important. And websites, obviously, for me are a huge piece of the puzzle. But if you really just want to get something going, get a splash page, put up and start collecting email addresses, I was talking to someone yesterday about like ConvertKit has really great just sort of landing pages, and use that as your website. And until you're ready to commit to something a little bit deeper, send people to that and just tell them to join your list. And be thinking about how you can use that list, you don't have to yet to start collecting those like that can be the beginning of an online presence, and then start chatting up potential clients, like actually do some work to get you your first bit of money. Because once you start turning those wheels of working with clients, you'll start figuring out everything else along the way. And
Kathleen Shannon 6:44
yeah, and so along with starting a website, I think it's important to start thinking about how you want to share your gifts and knowledge, and how you give away your expertise for free to position yourself as the guide that you want to be. And I would recommend making a list of 200 people that you would love to work with, or collaborate with, or rub elbows with. This is huge. Once you make that list of 200. You start signing up for their mailing lists, you hit reply, you follow them on Twitter basically become a professional stalker.
Kathleen Shannon 7:22
So there you go,
Emily Thompson 7:24
thank you.
Kathleen Shannon 7:26
We love our stalkers. And I think that that's like a really great way to get focused around who you want to work for. But again, like I keep coming back to the offering of here's what I do, here's how I do it. Here's what you get, here's how much it costs. Like I cannot get more basic than that. And I think it's the one thing that people get really hung up on.
Emily Thompson 7:54
Yeah, well, and that's just, that's just making those preliminary decisions, like you have to get going.
Kathleen Shannon 8:01
I think for coaches, it's especially hard, because and this is we're actually launching an offering today. Is that live Corey?
Emily Thompson 8:11
We can send..
Kathleen Shannon 8:13
like what I wasn't listening to you. Hit publishing now. I'm about to launch this. No, but like we're even actually launching and this is not, I'm not selling you on it. But we're launching an offering that is consulting, like boss consulting for coaches, because the market is becoming very saturated. And we love coaches. But I think unless you're like a triple threat, it's really hard to sell what you do. I don't know what the triple threatened coaching is. But for us it's being able to coach and design and
Emily Thompson 8:52
Content
Kathleen Shannon 8:53
content sharing content. That right Tara, like yes. Tara's not paying attention either. But really kind of figuring out ways to structure your coaching offering and that way that not only inspires and attracts people but it makes them feel really reassured and deliver. I mean sorry, reassured and whenever you deliver, so it's like what allows them to click buy that was not very eloquent at all. We talked about it yesterday. Okay, yeah, you're welcome.
Emily Thompson 9:31
There you have it. Mining Kathleen's top tips for helping Liz get started with her coaching business. If you're in the same boat as our new pal, Liz, where you're a coach hungry to begin helping your dream clients in the way that you know you can help them but maybe you're lost and how to craft your offering and sell what you do. And Kathleen and I invite you to join us for our first being boss coaching offering. We're ready to help you create and sell a coaching program that works and exclusive being boss offer For coaches who mean business, Find out more at beingboss.club/coaching spaces are very limited and we're taking applications until May 6. That's beingboss.club/coaching. We want to help you coaches. Be more boss. See you there.
