What are the most common (and avoidable) fatal business mistakes that coaches tend to make?
1. Lack of focus – Your most precious resource is your attention. Doing one thing well is an enormous challenge; tackling three or four things at once is a recipe for mediocrity.
Carefully sort through your marketing options before you choose which one to focus on (one target market/one problem/one solution). Commit to which ever option is most likely to be successful, and stick to it!
2. Inadequate market research – Failure to do adequate market research, including getting out into the marketplace and talking to as many high-potential customers as possible before committing to a marketing strategy, is asking for trouble. Google is a great place to start.
3. Perfectionism – Lots of coaches have great ideas for coaching products and programs. Some just can’t seem to stop fiddling with it until it’s perfect.
This is an unrealistic goal. There’s always an improvement that can be made, a bell or a whistle than can be added. When you’ve developed your product or program to the point where it represents a clearly superior choice, stick a fork in it and call it done.
4. Getting swallowed by a whale – Executive coaches are particularly vulnerable to “whale” clients. Imagine that you have the opportunity to get a contract that could cover all your expenses and then some. That’s the good news. The bad news is that this one contract is going to consume ALL your time and attention for the foreseeable future.
And the worst part is that when the whale spits you out (trust me, it will happen, usually at the worst possible time), you’ll be stuck with a whole lotta nothing. No clients, no cash flow and no prospects in the pipeline.
Now, I’m not necessarily suggesting that you should turn down a juicy opportunity. I’m just saying you still need to keep working on the rest of your business so that you’re not dependent on any particular customer.
5. Living large before you’re earning large – Show me a start-up coaching business with a swanky leased office space, shiny new furniture and equipment, and a virtual “staff” spread across the globe (virtual assistant, webmaster, bookkeeper, etc.), and I will show you a prescription for failure. In most cases, it’s all paid for by credit card. And the coach is sitting by themselves in the swanky office, wondering where all the clients are.
Lack of cash flow is death to any business. Spend your resources only when it makes a true difference, when it stands to directly impact your objectives.
Stay tuned for more traps to watch out for. Until then, leave a comment to let me know what you think.
UPDATE: Read the second part of this post here.
Kathy Mallary is a marketing strategist and business development coach who specializes in helping professional coaches find a lucrative niche and create signature coaching programs and products. Get free resources, including the new 17-page guide, “3 Keys for Building a Thriving One-of-a-Kind Coaching Business,” www.spiritspring.com
