How to Become a Business Coach – 7 Key Steps to Take

We see many successful leaders / owners of small and mid size businesses looking for a change and wondering how to become a business coach as an alternative career choice. Being a successful leader/owner of a business is not necessarily a requisite but it’s always easier when you can “walk the talk”.

In this article we are going to show you seven simple steps and help you decide whether you have what it takes to become a business coach.

Why Become A Business Coach

If you value independence, get fulfilment from seeing businesses and owners transform their livelihoods and are personal and relatable then a business coach or life coach may be a great choice.

After all in this new normal world as a business coach, you may work whenever and wherever you like with virtual engagement having become the norm.

Yet, what makes a career as a small business coach even more exciting is the opportunity to meet many people who have extraordinary talents and innovative ideas. Who knows, one of your clients may be the next Bill Gates or Elon Musk of Australia!

Another thing to consider is that more and more people are starting their own businesses. In fact, more than 12% of adults have already decided to be entrepreneurs in Australia alone.

This is why there is a high demand for skilled business coaches right now, making it one of the most lucrative jobs available in 2021 and beyond.

So, if you are still interested in becoming one, here’s a simple guide on how to become a business coach.

Step 1 – Realise Success In Your Own Business

The first step in this “how to become a business coach” guide is having extensive and proven small business leadership experience.

This is not to say that you must have a solid track record as a business owner. However, you need to have at least the experience of working with someone who has started a business from scratch or from an early stage and helped it achieve revenue/growth goals.

Being able to coach from a place of confidence and experience will not only help you attract clients more easily but re-assure them when they are struggling – allowing you to demonstrate more empathy as you have walked in their shoes. The alternative if you have not really had success in running your own business would be the academic route in taking a business coaching course or equivalent – more covered on this in step 4.

Step 2 – Know Your Reasons

Before you go out there and put the title “Australia’s Best Business Coach” on your Instagram profile, it would be worthy idea to delve deeper into why you want to pursue this career path in the first place.

Yes, it sounds nice and you may well make a lot of money, but are these two reasons enough to encourage you to become a successful business coach? 

Its been proven in life and business you need to be fulfilled by where you spend your time, and if being a business coach can fulfil a deeper need – primarily to help others grow and connect with others, then this could be an excellent choice indeed. If you are asking yourself how to start a career coaching business then focussing on your “why” is crucial as when times get tough, and they undoubtably will at some point, you can come back to this “why” to keep pushing ahead.

Step 3 – Choose Your Niche

Finding a specific niche for yourself is the next stage in learning how to become a business coach. After all, having a specialty can help you expand your client base.

So, it only makes sense to pick a niche that you’re already familiar with. To start, you can select a specialty based on the type of industry or the company’s size. Choosing a small company niche for the Australian market can also be a terrific idea.

For example look back on the businesses you have worked with, or owned for that matter are they all trades and services, or perhaps hospitality. Focus your coaching business just on businesses in that niche.

Step 4 – Consider Upskilling

If you think that the journey to becoming a business coach in Sydney is anchored only in the success you have had, then you may want to think again. Arguably the key skill is being able to relate to people, be an excellent listner and communicator. There are some fantasic simple courses available on linkedin learning and other similar platforms that are high value and low cost on these topics. Alternatively you could consider a business coach course that will be more comprehensive. Seek the opinion of a business mentor or ex colleague that can give you suggestions to areas of growth.

Step 5 – Build Your Coaching Framework

Having a framework is essential as a business coach as with any profession. It will not only help you have a better workflow, but it will also help you convince clients that you have a real coaching strategy in place.

Think of this as your end to end process from initial consultation with client, through agreeing goals and measure of success, through to competion of your engagement. You want to map this all out and refine this process as you bring on board your first clients. Read on to learn more.

Step 6 – Get Your Initial Clients and Find Success

Now is the time to go out there and find your first clients! And where might you ask is the best place to start? Leverage your network!

This could be 2-fold – either business contacts you already have from your previous work, or local businesses you know that you already buy products or services from. I would suggest the latter as if you are already buying a product or service from a business you have a foot in the door to how their business runs, and if you see areas that could be improved its a perfect opportunity to mention your services.

Once you land your first client, forget about the money initially. Now I dont mean dont charge, but shift your mindset from earning money as a success measure to simply the client seeing success. Having a few initial clients who see success will make all the difference. Its worth also having a compelling offer. To do this research what the average rate is for business coaches in your general area, then apply some initial discount to that as an initial offer. Make that offer good for lifetime – trust me it will work a treat. The initial clients will feel they are getting an amazing deal and as they are people you know you would already have a level of rapport.

Again your goal is for the initial clients to see success from your services and become raving fans, as a result you will likely get a few great google reviews, and have them refer you more clients! The flywheel of your coaching business has just begun!

Step 7 – Scale It Up !

At this point you are likely wondering how to scale your coaching business?

Now easier said than done but the most fundamental principles I can suggest are as follows:

1) Select your clients well based on temprament – working with small businesses you are dealing with often make or greak situations. By selecting clients with a calm temprament that are less prone to stress etc will help. Focus on assessing this in the initial consultation with the customer, also check out their Google Reviews or Social Media Reviews and focus on how they reply to reviews – you would be amazed about how much you can learn from this alone

2) Set Expectations Clearly and Early – Always set and agree goals and expectations early and document them. When things go off track which can happen you can refer back to them. This will help avoid unexpected surprises. As you are choosing your clients well as per above point it will be easier to navigate expectation management

3) Delight Your Clients – again cant stress this enough, by delighting your clients and helping them see value you will scale much faster. If you choose your clients well and set clear expectations early then delighting them will be all that much easier. Now you have removed those obstacles, you can just focus on doing your best.

The final steps are really asking for referrals and reviews. Many business coaches dont need to advertiser as they do the above really well, and no reason you can’t. But pushing your message out on social media and on Google Search is also well worth considering as you look to scale.

FAQs

How much does a business coach make?

A business coach’s earnings are virtually limitless based on number of clients and hours they have available to work. In Australia, however, the average yearly income for a business coach is approximately $95,000 AUD based on our research.

Do you need a degree to be a business coach?

There’s no law requiring a business coach to have a degree to practice their profession – its not regulated in that sense. There is no better experience than real life experience, however if you are working in a niche were academic qualifications are valued – (think a doctor, dentist etc) then yourself having some kind of qualification will likely help you establish stronger rapport with your customer base.

How long does it take to become a business coach?

This is the golden question, and purpose of this article. If you followed the above steps and were working on your coaching business full time, you could easily have a successful coaching business off the ground within 6-9 months.