I remember my very first day of coach training so vividly: I’d packed my pens, notebooks, water bottle and snacks the night before, so I’d be ready to jump out of bed and head straight to day one of Module I. That morning I arrived early and took my seat, practically buzzing with excitement—as a lover of learning, I was thrilled to be in a classroom again.
That eagerness to get to the first day of training and start learning didn’t stop in the classroom. I was passionate about using my newfound coaching skills to help others transform their lives, and I wanted to start my coaching business right away. I didn’t know anything about business building, but I was impatient to have mine up and running ASAP!
It’s been 14 years since I enrolled at iPEC. I’m proud of the version of me who took the leap to become a certified coach and build her own coaching practice—the lessons I learned from both were invaluable. And (not but)! Looking back, there are things I wish I’d known then that would have made my journey smoother and easier.
Here are 6 things I remember wondering about when I was starting my business, and what I wish I knew then.
1. Focus on Becoming a Great Coach, First
"Should I focus on business-building or coaching skills first?"
In my eagerness (which is a nice way of saying impatience) to get my first clients, my mind was often spinning about what my niche should be, how much I should charge, and how to market myself.
If I’m being totally honest, I wish I had fixated less on the business-building questions when I was early on in coach training, and allowed myself to focus solely on becoming a great coach.
Because being a great coach is the tool you need the MOST to sell your services, regardless of what niche you enter into or what ways you choose to use your coach training certification.
When you’re truly excellent at what you do, you become someone who others talk about and refer people to, which is the foundation of any successful coaching practice.
🌟 What I’d say to my past self
"Trust that if you focus first on your coach training journey, you will become the kind of coach who naturally attracts your ideal clients.”
2. Don’t Stress About Choosing the “Right” Niche
"How do I choose the right niche for my coaching business?"
I, like many of my fellow new coaches at the time, was really preoccupied with making sure I niched myself “correctly” from the very beginning, which is understandable—how can you start a coaching business without knowing what kind of clients you want to work with? And if you choose “wrong,” that could lead to a lot of wasted time, money, and energy.
But what I didn’t account for was how much my desires would be shaped by my coaching experiences.
My very first coaching relationships—with my peer clients, as well as with my very early paid clients—taught me so much about what kind of coach I wanted to be. I learned what subjects energized me, where my skills were most useful, and the kind of impact I most wanted to have. There was no way I could have figured any of that out before I was in the thick of doing it!
What I know now is that evolution is par for the course. It’s natural to choose a starting point and to grow and expand in different directions. It doesn’t make you inconsistent or noncommittal if you change your mind—it makes you human (which is something your future clients will value about you).
🌟 What I’d say to my past self
"You and your business will evolve a lot as you go—it’s totally okay to choose something now, and then make changes over time.”
3. Ease Up on the Pressure to Find Clients
"What if I’m struggling to find my first coaching clients?"
If my eagerness was impatience in disguise, then my impatience was sometimes anxiety in disguise.
I came into coach training ready to start my new career and get clients ASAP, partially because I was so passionate about it, but also because my corporate job at that time was incredibly unfulfilling. So, I put pressure on myself to get clients so that I could leave that job behind… which sometimes backfired!
As iPEC coaches, we know that the energetic lens through which we perceive ourselves and our situation is everything.
If we’re anxious about finding clients and making money, that energy seeps into how we run our business and talk to prospective clients. We run the risk of turning off the right clients, attracting the wrong ones, and projecting our own agenda onto people instead of allowing them to fully buy into the coaching partnership for themselves.
When you can step into a place of trust—believing the right people will find you at the right time, and you’re exactly where you need to be as a new coach—that energy is far more attractive and abundant.
Which means that, counterintuitively, sometimes the best way of guaranteeing a stream of new clients is by having another steady, stable source of income so that there’s no financial pressure on your coaching practice. When your circumstances allow the business-building journey to be fun and for you to be unattached to the outcome, things flow so much better!
🌟 What I’d say to my past self
“The less pressure you put on yourself to find clients and make money, the more easily both of those things will happen.”
4. Tap Into the Power of a Simple Discovery Session
"What’s the easiest way to get clients as a new coach?"
It’s so easy as a new coach to get dazzled by all the possibilities—the bells and whistles of websites, social media profiles, email funnels, and more. And sometimes being dazzled can lead to feeling intimidated (“do I really need all of this to get clients?!”).
But the fantastic news is that simplicity can work beautifully for you.
For the first two years in business—before I had a functioning website, business cards, or social media presence—I did countless hour-long, free discovery sessions with potential clients. And they had a really high conversion rate! Giving people a taste of the power of coaching allows them to see and feel the possibility in a way that nothing else can.
Eventually I stopped doing them because the demand became too high, which was a great problem to have. But as a new coach, a free discovery session is a true win-win: you get coaching experience, the other person gets a free hour of high-quality coaching, and you very possibly get a client out of it!
And if you’re still overwhelmed by everything you might need to run a successful coaching business, keep in mind that while they’re nice to have, you don’t need a website or business cards to start coaching people. Identify the minimum viable tools you might need, like an email address, a way to do client intake, a place to take notes, and a way to take payments. All of those can be achieved for free, or at a very low cost, and you can weave in more sophisticated elements as you go!
And if you’re anything like me all those years ago, you’ll benefit from hearing this: It’s a limiting belief that you won’t appear “professional” without the full suite of business tools.
🌟 What I’d say to my past self
“Start simply and add the bells and whistles as you go.”
5. Don’t Overcomplicate Your Offerings
"How many coaching packages should I offer?"
I’ll admit that as a new coach, I couldn’t help but play the comparison game sometimes (which always ended in me feeling like I’d lost). And almost always, the coaches I compared myself to had been in business a lot longer than me. They’d solidified their niche, had the fancy website and all the marketing tools, and had multiple levels of offerings for every potential client.
But simplicity can be the name of the game when it comes to your offerings, too.
It’s tempting to complicate things by dreaming up a complex array of offerings all at different price points—and if the idea of that thrills you, then by all means, go for it! But if that intimidates you, know that you can find plenty of success by keeping things clear and basic.
You might start with something as simple as: identify an entry level point, like a free discovery session, and then perhaps add one mid-tier and one larger coaching package. I started out with a discovery session, a 3-month package, and a 6-month package—and I still offer a version of those packages today. The basics work for a reason! And like everything else I’ve touched on so far, you can always evolve and experiment with your offerings as you go.
🌟 What I’d say to my past self
“When in doubt, trust in the basics to serve you well.”
6. Coaching and Business-Building Are Two Different Skillsets
"How can I learn the business-building skills I need, without getting overwhelmed?"
Back to that excited, eager new coaching student: at the very start of my journey, it didn’t occur to me that coaching and business-building were two different skillsets that I would need to learn separately.
Somehow, I thought that the process of becoming a well-trained coach would allow me to naturally market myself as a coach. But in hindsight, of course those are two different things! It’s one thing to know how to identify someone’s deep, stuck energy, for example, and it’s another altogether to know how to build an email list and get people to click.
The thing I most wish I’d had back then was a structure, right from the very beginning of coach training, that I knew I could trust in to help me build my business when the time was right. I would have relaxed into the coach training experience so much more if I knew that, at the end, I’d be able to move smoothly into learning what I needed to know about business-building.
This wasn’t an option for me all those years ago, but if you’re a coach hoping to build your own business now, that support DOES exist! It’s called Lead & Launch, and it takes you from "I'm certified, now what?" to "I have a clear roadmap and I'm ready to launch."
Here are just a few things you’ll cover in Lead & Launchc that would’ve been SO helpful to me, as a new coach:
- The difference between niching by industry vs. choosing a niche according to your client’s ideal transformation—this would have solved a lot of my angst about narrowing down my niche
- An entire module dedicated to business infrastructure—AKA, demystifying all of the operations, legal, and finance pieces you need to have in place to run a successful coaching business
- Building your offers and learning the strategy of how to structure and price them.
- Creating a doable, sustainable marketing plan that feels energetically aligned and NOT salesy
Plus, it comes with six monthly Q&A calls and three 1:1 coaching sessions throughout the course, for tailored guidance and accountability—which would have felt incredibly supportive to me, as I was striving to make my business goals a reality.
Learn more and sign up for Lead & Launch here!
🌟 What I’d say to my past self
“Dedicate yourself to learning the ins and outs of business development with the same energy you tackled coach training, and you’re destined for success.”
If you're a new coach at the beginning of your coaching and business-building journey, I'm so excited for everything you're about to learn and discover! Trust the process, start simple, and know that you don't need to have everything figured out from day one.
And if you want support building your business with the same kind of structure and guidance you had during coach training, Lead & Launch is here to help you every step of the way.