As a consultant, I have resisted for a long time calling myself a coach.  For some reason, it just seemed off to me.  I have always described myself as a marketer, not a coach.  It is what I went to school for and spent my career doing so why would I consider being a coach.  And who would want to hire me to coach them on marketing when they could just hire me to do their marketing?  Well, guess what, all the people who haven’t reached the point where they can afford to hire me to do it for them.  All those people need help and need my experience to get to the level where they can afford me to do it for them. 

Once I realized this I stepped back and tried to think about what that would look like.  I wouldn’t have to lower my prices to do the marketing for them I could just coach them to do it for themselves.  Then as I usually do I started running the numbers.  And I was blown away.  I could share my expertise with more people while doing one of the things I like best, brainstorming ideas and turning them into tangible action steps.  And I could do this over and over again for more people in various ways.

At that point, I had a major mind shift in my business.  I now knew how to help more people while increasing my revenue and building a pipeline of clients who will upgrade to high-end services down the road. This was a game changer for me.  Up until this point, I kept thinking that I had to just sign more and more clients until I could be in a place to hire help.  But this way gets me there a lot faster with less time commitment on my part.  And it makes me affordable for people who want to work with me but previously could not.  It is a Win Win.

Okay, but how do you do this for yourself.  Here are some simple questions to ask yourself to evaluate if this model will fit into your business.

  • Do people seek you out to ask for advice and your opinion on their business?
  • Do you spend time with your clients brainstorming?
  • Do you spend time reinforcing your clients that they are headed in the right direction?
  • Do people text you just to bounce an idea off you?
  • Do you find yourself sharing ideas when you are networking as much as you are sharing your own business?

Merriam-Webster defines a coach as one who instructs or trains.  If you answered yes to any of the questions above, then you are instructing and training your clients.  Which means you are coaching them.  So, it is time for you like me to except it.  Embrace it.  And begin to build ways to make it profitable for you.  As entrepreneurs, we must think like entrepreneurs.  We must step out of our comfort zone and find our success zone.  That zone where we are making the money we may have never known how to make.  That zone where the world starts to shift for us.  That zone that we have dreamed of being a part of.  The zone that we now realize we must build for ourselves.

By: Amy Matthews, CEO, AMI LC