The following is taken from David’s interview with Robert Cornish in 10 Super Coaches.
What was most disheartening for you while building your practice?
I spent a lot of money learning that print advertising is ineffective to market coaching services, and that THE way was personal contact with people in a way that they can experience what you are like.
Public speaking is a good way to do this, and so my block was overcoming for good my fear of public speaking. Having been one who used to stutter this was a big deal. I joined Toastmasters and actively sought and did as many talks about coaching as I could – to service clubs, business networking groups, my church, and any group of people I could speak in front of.
The following is an excerpt from the CoachStart Manual.
What holds back most coaches in the early years is lack of confidence. The best way to bust through this barrier: coach fifty people! It doesn’t matter if it’s just a practice session or if it turns into three months of coaching.
Clients are “gold” for you – no matter what the fee. So don’t let your fee or lack of confidence stand between you and coaching many people.
Every client you have gives you:
- The feeling that you are really a coach, not a fraud
- A practice that looks a little more busy (“Sorry — that time slot is not available.”)
- The potential for referrals
- Free training!
- More and more confidence with every session you do, and lastly
- Possible revenue — either immediately or down the track
The following is taken from David’s interview with Ernest F. Oriente in 10 Super Coaches.
Roughly how much capital/money did you spend in the first 6-12 months, and on what?
It was about $40,000. We had to buy a computer desk, a computer, phone, fax, cost for insurance, cost for telephone calls – we call all of our clients. We have a phone bill that’s quite sizeable. And so those were the costs.
Here’s the interesting part though, when we were billing about $100,000 – $200,000, our expenses were about $40-50,000. Then we grew it from $200,000 to $400,000.
In most businesses your expenses grow proportionately, but our expenses today are almost parallel to our expenses six and seven years ago. It still runs us about $40-55,000 a year to operate our business. A coaching business has fixed expenses so as you add more revenue all of that just flows straight to the bottom line.
The following is an excerpt from the book Get Paid For Who You Are.
Don’t just take my word for it. there’s an internet website called www.killerstart-ups.com that reviews fifteen new internet start-ups every single working day. That’s about 4,000 start- ups every year — just the ones this site reviews — with subjects ranging from financial investments to resources for educators to evaluating tv shows to culinary tips.
The prospects are as limitless as the number of hobbies and interests you can think up. One website, www.itsthoughtful.com is all about a community of people who want to get ideas for gifts that matter to those they care about. Someone had to think up the idea, start researching gifts, and start connecting others who are interested in the same thing. for that matter, someone had to think of starting a website reviewing new internet start-ups!
What’s your passion, hobby, skill or experience? Can it be turned into a revenue stream for you? Yes it can, whether you like scrapbooking, deep sea diving, nifty new gadgets, lawn care, becoming a better parent, personal development, financial planning, or hiking in national parks. Whatever you like or love is something you can spend more time doing and make money while doing it!
