How to Build a Profitable Online Coaching Business Without Much Experience
Building a coaching business without experience can feel like having a degree but unable to find a job because of the lack of experience. It’s an impossible broken system. You can’t get the experience without the job and can’t get the job without the experience.
Luckily the “coaching system” is not broken. Though it can feel that way. That impossible feeling often paralyzes new coaches.
The worst thing a coach can do when they feel a lack of experience is nothing. Yet it’s the most natural thing to do. That’s because that coach has hit the terror barrier. This is what happens whenever humans try to step out of their comfort zone. The terror barrier is impossible to trample without understanding what it is.
The Terror Barrier explained
Terror Barrier is a term that Bob Proctor invented. It’s an invisible barrier that needs to be overcomed in order to uplevel into freedom. This barrier comes when someone’s dreams are pulling them forward while the comfort zone is pulling them back. A tug of war state that if suppressed will lead to depression and dis-ease.
“Fear and growth go hand in hand. When you courageously face the thing you fear, you automatically experience the growth you have been seeking.”
– Sandy Gallagher
Doing nothing or quitting often is settling back into the comfort zone. Trampling the terror barrier into freedom is about recognizing the tug of war state. Then choosing to take a leap of faith towards one’s dreams.
Boosting one’s confidence really helps with overcoming the terror barrier. It helps make sense of the leap of faith that needs to happen. This does not make the leap easy but it makes it more comfortable.
You will either step forward into GROWTH or you will step back into SAFETY.
– Abraham Maslow
Meaning-making machines
“We are meaning-making machines” is the line that most stuck with me from my NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programing) certification training. We give meaning to everything. Besides that our minds distort, delete, and generalizes everything. Meaning-making machines that distort, delete, and generalize information can cause some big confidence issues.
Every situation can be given a positive or negative meaning. Unless we give a situation the meaning we desire, it will take on a negative meaning. It’s how humans are wired and it’s nobody’s fault.
The Confidence Killer Loop
Not seeing the desired results in business can be disappointing AF! Let’s not even talk about the frustration and stress that can come with it. Making it logical that it starts eating up at one’s confidence to succeed. Add in the pressure of family and friends critiques and it makes for a confidence buzz kill. Which for most people means the beginning of the Confidence Killer Loop.
I know this loop all too well. I was stuck in it for 2 years in my business. Every so often breaking out. Only to find me back in the loop.
For a long time, I thought that something was wrong with me. Only to discover that my clients were all stuck in that loop before starting to work with me. I was helping them break out while being stuck myself.
I found my blindspot and became obsessed with unblinding it. I wanted to be ready to sing “I can see clearly now the rain is gone” ASAP!
After helping myself and my clients overcome the lack of confidence, I decided to share these tips and tricks with you.
I’ve also included the Confidence Booster Journal Prompts to help.
Confidence Building Tips + Tricks
True confidence comes from within. It’s from knowing that you are already more than enough. There’s nothing you can do or not do to take that away. We are all perfection personified.
“A confident person is able to trust themselves and their decisions”
– Sheedia Jansen
In business, it’s important to acknowledge one’s desires. These desires tell us a lot about what we’re capable of. Since we are perfection personified, our desires are also perfect. Desires are potential seeking expression. Again, there’s nothing anyone can do to change their potential.
With that in mind, a business is an avenue for someone to express their potential. To live out their purpose. To contribute their gifts to the world
In the coaching space, there’s a lot of speculations on whether coaches are capable of helping clients transform. Especially since there are “coaches” that have taken advantage of people for selfish gain. This happens. As they say; “Shit happens”.
What also happens is good-hearted capable humans with a calling to help, hold back. They are so afraid to hurt someone that they do nothing. That is a fear-based response that does not serve anyone. Especially not the potential clients that need that coach’s help.
How to build a profitable coaching business without experience?
Start by acknowledging your worth.
Check out the free confidence journal on how to do that.
2. Experience it for yourself
Being a client gives one first-hand experience of what it’s like to work with a coach. It makes it easier to understand what a client will feel like working with you. Plus you’ll get to experience everything from picking a coach to onboarding to what tech is used in order to make it all run smoothly.
Not sure what type of coach to invest in? Read 7 Types of Coaches to Invest in as a Coach
3. Get some experience.
This can be either paid or free. There’s nothing wrong with offering low cost or free coaching to build a “portfolio”. Make sure that the people that you are helping are actually your soulmate clients.
4. Have a business plan.
“Just start” is the best and worst advice. There’s no wait needed to start a coaching business. But it’s important to have a basic understanding of business and a plan to follow. Without it, the business will run on luck and forever be inconsistent. In addition, having a set structure to follow really helps with moving things along.
5. Get yourself a community.
The average person does not have a ton of entrepreneurial friends. If you’re one of those people, it’s important to surround yourself with others who are walking the same path as you. Business owners need to have a business mindset in order to succeed. This mindset often goes against what the average person thinks. So trying to adopt that mindset while surrounded with “non-business friends” will certainly not help in the confidence department.
Blog post soundtrack:
This blog post’s soundtrack is brought to us by Levi Silvanie. Whom I’ve gone to high school with. He reminds us to have the courage and take flight.
“By the way, the only way to know, is just to try”
– Levi Silvanie
The perfect song to journal to as you remember that you have what it takes to make this happen!
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